Title from here, text from Megan McArdle:

Actually going through the mortgage process is a reminder of one of the reasons that things went so badly wrong during the housing bubble; we are inundated with paper. There are disclosures about the Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act telling us we have seven days to review any change in our APR; disclosures about the Home Valuation Code of Conduct, even a disclosure solemnly informing us that the bank intends to check credit scores and may not loan us money if there's a bad payment history of too much debt. I'm pretty good with paperwork, and I understand all the terms being used (not to mention the laws being referenced), and I find it impossible to keep track of it all mentally...This illustrates, I think, the limits of transparency. Much of this paperwork is the product of earlier acts designed to help uninformed borrowers deal with the complexity of their loans. If you read and understand all of it, perhaps you do. But there's so much of it that it's relatively easier to overlook something.

...I don't know that we're striking the wrong balance; I don't need a quarter point lower rate so badly that we should expose millions of unsophisticated homebuyers to danger of being cheated. What worries me is that there's little recognition that we have to strike a balance--or for that matter, even that there are tradeoffs. Everything that ever disadvantaged someone is automatically assumed to be a terrible product feature that ought to be eliminated. That instinct is what most worries me about the new CFPA.