We tend to focus on assets and forget about debts. Financial security requires facing up to the big picture: assets minus debts.
Small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places, and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want in weight, they make up in number, and render it less hazardous to stand the fire of one cannon ball, than a volley composed of such a shower of bullets.
The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.
The Congo is very wealthy from oil money but is not paying its debts and at the same time is applying for special status at the World Bank. That's shocking and disingenuous.
I generally encourage people to make good on debts when they have enough money to repay them. But once a delinquency has been reported to a collection agency, paying it off won't help your FICO score. The damage has already been done, and the blemish will remain on your credit report for seven years.