A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage – Herbert Hoover, 1928

President Barack Obama wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Toward a 21st Century Regulatory System, trying to justify his administration's decision to review and rescind Federal Regulations by executive order.

This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It's a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.

Where necessary, we won't shy away from addressing obvious gaps: new safety rules for infant formula; procedures to stop preventable infections in hospitals; efforts to target chronic violators of workplace safety laws. But we are also making it our mission to root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.

Michael Collins

For at least ten years the large US banks have been selling a product – the residential home mortgage – with a fatal legal flaw that renders it uncollateralized. Numerian

Apocalypse When? Round Up of Massachusetts Supreme Court Decision on ForeclosureGate, US Bank N.A. v Ibanez - Around 1995, the big bank lenders established their own rules for handling the various steps of issuing a mortgage. They knew well the contract laws of the states in which they operated. But they had bigger plans. They wanted to bundle up thousands of mortgages and sell them as Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). To do that, they needed an electronic system (MERS) that could bundle mortgages and sell them repeatedly to investors here and overseas. Never mind that state law required specific documentation at every step, including documentation to prove a specific owner of the property. When banks resold the MBS product, as it were, they were interested in churn and more money, not tagging a specific mortgage with the latest MBS owner.

Oops! The big banks screwed up big time. Bankruptcy courts at the state and federal level are used to adherence to contract law and court rulings. Most people in foreclosure struggle to pay for representation if they go to court. Many settle out of court. But the Show Me the Note movement, in and out of court, has a powerful ally - the Ibanez decision.