The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has begun its rulemaking process for mortgage servicing, starting with a description of the rules they will consider. The formal proposal of servicing rules will come this summer, and the final rules will get promulgated in January 2013.

Yale professor Robert Shiller delivered a profoundly odd op-ed this weekend arguing that Occupy Wall Street and promoters of “financial innovation” have the same goal in mind, to “democratize” Wall Street. Matt Taibbi is not one of those idealists. And he went off on the JOBS Act, which includes those crowdfunding provisions, presenting an overwhelming counterpoint to Shiller’s optimism and predicting JOBS will be haven for fraud.

CREDO, the online progressive organizing group, alleges in a new email to supporters that the Justice Department has not delivered the promised (and paltry) number of 55 staff members to the RMBS working group, the task force co-chaired by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate the mortgage securitization practices of the leading banks. No investigators means not investigations, and time is running out.

Over the next several weeks, these bank accountability leaders told me they will step up their direct efforts against the banks and also the Administration.

In a speech yesterday, Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Ed DeMarco, said that he would make a new determination on the efficacy of principal reduction for underwater borrowers in Fannie and Freddie-backed loans by the end of this month. The GSEs own or guarantee $5 trillion worth of home mortgages, a substantial chunk, maybe 60%, of the housing market. So even though they only hold 29% of the seriously delinquent loans, their course of action on principal reduction is obviously critical.

Yves Smith points us to a nice takedown of the woeful JOBS Act, which should get signed into law this week. Chris Hayes had Bill Black and Alexis Goldstein of Occupy the SEC on to talk about it, with Rep. Carolyn Maloney making a (weak) defense. It really was no contest.

After both houses of Congress passed it, the White House is finally recognizing that the deregulatory bill they proposed and pushed is distasteful to liberals who have actually looked at it for longer than two seconds. Reportedly it’s part of the left over legacy of Bill Daley, but why did no one in the White House realize the problem?

In the most damning evidence thus far of malfeasance at MF Global, Bloomberg reports that former New Jersey Senator and Governor Jon Corzine, while CEO of the company, personally ordered $200 million in investor funds transferred to cover an overdrawn account at JPMorgan Chase.

While Eric Schneiderman’s MERS lawsuit mostly crashed and burned, another suit against the electronic registry, filed just yesterday, appears to have more determination behind it. Jeff Thigpen, the register of deeds for Guilford County, North Carolina, sued MERS, the document processing company Lender Processing Services and several banks and loan servicers, using as evidence the contents of his register of deeds’ office.

When the HUD Inspector General tried to examine the major banks foreclosure records and practices, they uncovered many instances of potential legal violations, which they referred to the Justice Department. DoJ sat on this information while pushing for settlements. Meanwhile, the banks stonewaled the IG investigation, refusing to provide documents and preventing the IG from interviewing employees or others with direct knowledge.