End of the day link dump

Must read Matt Taibbi piece on the foreclosure crisis.

For most people, the former bit about homeowners not paying their damn bills is the important part, while the latter, about the sudden and strange inability of the world's biggest and wealthiest banks to keep proper records, is incidental. Just a little office sloppiness, and who cares? Those deadbeat homeowners still owe the money, right? "They had it coming to them," is how a bartender at the Jacksonville airport put it to me.

But in reality, it's the unpaid bills that are incidental and the lost paperwork that matters. It turns out that underneath that little iceberg tip of exposed evidence lies a fraud so gigantic that it literally cannot be contemplated by our leaders, for fear of admitting that our entire financial system is corrupted to its core — with our great banks and even our government coffers backed not by real wealth but by vast landfills of deceptively generated and essentially worthless mortgage-backed assets.

You've heard of Too Big to Fail — the foreclosure crisis is Too Big for Fraud. Think of the Bernie Madoff scam, only replicated tens of thousands of times over, infecting every corner of the financial universe. The underlying crime is so pervasive, we simply can't admit to it — and so we are working feverishly to rubber-stamp the problem away, in sordid little backrooms in cities like Jacksonville, behind doors that shouldn't be, but often are, closed.

See also: Debtors' prisons!

The Lens: Even with plenty of subsidized housing, most still clustered in poorest areas

Despite the demolition of the city’s four largest public housing developments, New Orleans has more subsidized housing for its poorest residents now than it had five years ago. But even after spending billions to tear down the old projects and issue vouchers to encourage low-income renters to settle in better neighborhoods, the Housing Authority of New Orleans continues to see these clients concentrated in the city’s poorest areas.

I've always been dubious on the very concept of alleviating poverty by scattering people. Some of these "discoveries", for instance, seem like they should have been fairly obvious from the start.

“People who are poor don’t depend on incomes to get by,” she said. “They depend on social networks: the person that is taking them to grocery store, the auntie who is watching their child. If that is how you are surviving, you are going to move to be close to that community.

“When we started this, we expected the choice to be constrained,” Reid added. “But we expected the constraints to be structural. What we’ve found is that the situation is far more nuanced.”

Reid said that the experiences and desires of low-income people must be figured into the policymaking process in a deeper way, if cities want do more than simply relocate poverty.

“We need to be talking to the people that are affected by policy,” she said.

Some of us remember back when these housing policies were being debated rushed through in the wake of the federal flood, "talking to the people that are affected" basically meant gawking at the size of their televisions. Oh and also blowing kisses at them too, which was nice. But those were simple simple times.

CNN: Pilots urged to avoid body scanning

Pilots' unions for US Airways and American Airlines are urging their members to avoid full-body scanning at airport security checkpoints, citing health risks and concerns about intrusiveness and security officer behavior.

It's good to read about these "health risks" just before the Holiday traveling season. Saints fans who are used to their "welcome hug" each time they enter the Superdome may not be as averse to opting for the pat-down as other passengers.

Obama deficit reduction commission recommendations worse than previously thought.

1. Raises the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare to 69.

2. Cuts Social Security benefits.

3. Ends the mortgage tax deduction.

4. Ends the tax deduction for workers' health benefits.

5. Freezes salaries for federal workers for 3 years.

6. Establishes co-pays for veterans at VA health services.

7. Raises fees to visit the national parks and the Smithsonian.

8. Merges the Small Business Administration into an agency (Commerce) that has always prioritized helping bigger businesses, and cuts their budget.

9. Eliminates the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.

See also: Many deficit commission staffers paid by outside groups

Instead, about one in four commission staffers is paid by outside entities, many of which have strong ideological points of view about how to tackle the deficit.

For example, the salaries of two senior staffers, Marc Goldwein and Ed Lorenzen, are paid by private groups that have previously advocated cuts to entitlement programs. Lorenzen is paid by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, while Goldwein is paid by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is also partly funded by the Peterson group.

Finally, on a happier note, New Orleans East doesn't have to say goodbye to its beloved zombie apocalypse hell-scape quite so soon after all.

Six Flags razing rumors denied

Although a video making the rounds on the Internet says the theme park is scheduled for demolition next year, New Orleans officials say there are no plans to demolish the Six Flags amusement park and that an offer to redevelop the site is still pending.

Detritus photographers everywhere rejoice.