It might have been

   While the federal government was basically doing for the big national banks what those young "escorts" were doing for Eliot Spitzer, Spitzer [right] was trying to do something about it. About the  banks, that is. The Bush administration and the federal courts wouldn't let him.
   Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court said Spitzer was right and the feds were wrong. [Article.  Ruling.  Poem.]
   In today's lead editorial -- Victory too late -- The Buffalo News argues that if Spitzer's probe investigation had stopped the practices of some banks to steer minority families into high-interest, high-risk mortgages, it might have prevented, or at least eased, the global financial meltdown that resulted from the burst of the housing bubble.
   It is a case of closing the barn door, for sure. But it demonstrates that, when it comes to making sure banks don’t cause the downfall of the whole economy, the more eyes on them, the better.

   Also on today's Opinion page
- Locking through
   If it was important to Buffalo to restore the western terminus of the Erie Canal, imagine what it means to Lockport — and the rest of Western New York — to rehabilitate the canal’s famous "Flight of Five" locks in the city. This is an important project and it is now under way. [Article. History.]  
- Allegany State Park needs a good master plan 
   By Larry Beahan
- Bingo tradition is humbly assumed 
   By Stefan Mychajliw

-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News 
  

Comments

[Louis L. Boehm]

Buffalo of all places has seen first hand the devastating effects of a trade policy in which our trade partners get to make up their own rules
while we try to compete with total naivety on one hand and direct our manufacturers to relocate overseas with the other. I cannot believe at
this stage and time the Buffalo News in it's 7/7/90 editorial "Victory
too late", could publish such a myopic view as to imply lending policies are the sole cause of the economic collapse. It's like
watching a horseback rider have a heart attack, fall and break his arm and have a splint be considered the total cure for his ailment.

Unfortunately media coverage has graced the current revamp of archaic economics with the modern term global but It's the New Deal which provided the impetus for the previous, most prosperous and successful
economy of all time. Did the editor consider what would have happened if those exotic loans were not issued to rescue this already faltering
system? What kind of a boom would have been possible with the depletion of all our industrials, loss of jobs and declining incomes
from the outlandish trade imbalances?

Publishing the popular view is not always the best cure for what ails us. The earth was once considered flat.

[HapKlein]

It appears Spitzer really had a grasp of the shenanigans going on in the banking industry. He surely has raised the ire of most of the people responsible for the mess the nation is in now.

Perhaps society should decide if redemption is possible. Surely the ineptness of all the mediocre folk who currently are driving the state into a black hole should be enough to encourage his resurrection.

Evidently even his own wife seems to have forgiven him and the rest of us are not without all sin. I bet he will lead a very careful life henceforth.

I say - Spitzer for Governor!

[Wil]

Well, he did the honorable thing and stepped down because of his adultery...Maybe Republicans like Sanford and Vitter should do the same.... Party of morals and all.....

[Buffalo Libertarian]

Wil wrote: "Well, he did the honorable thing and stepped down because of his adultery...Maybe Republicans like Sanford and Vitter should do the same."

There's hope for you yet, Wil.