Random Sips From the Firehose, IV

• A study in The Lancet suggests that a legal, cheap and commonly available drug (alcohol) is considerably more harmful in aggregate than an illegal, expensive, and difficult to obtain one (heroin). For some reason, this is causing controversy.
   
• Robosigning: The foreclosure mills didn't invent it, they merely publicized it. Debt collectors have been doing the robo-signing thang for years.
   
• Barry links to a summary of recent caselaw dealing with MERS: Short version - MERS is a convoluted mess that is only now getting the judicial scrutiny it deserved.
  

  MERS is a construct of the mortgage finance industry created and implemented to facilitate the sale of promissory notes and servicing rights in residential mortgage transactions. But, the architechts of MERS did not simply create a modernized system of keeping track of loan transfers. They also adopted untested, novel terminology for the most importatn documents that protect lenders and investors claiming liens on real estate - the mortgage/deed of trust and assignments. Then they decided that the execution and/or recording of assignments was unnecessary unless foreclosure needed to be filed...Time outran the MERS system, and now state and federal courts acros the country are struggling to give meaning to [an entity that claims to be] "acting solely as nominee."