It seems as if banks cannot get out of the news. First, there is the ongoing financial meltdown, which involves banks and bank groups as culprits in packaging and selling asset-backed securities and otherwise making imprudent credit decisions. Now there is bank reporting of currency transactions that resulted in the resignation of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who was not exactly beloved by the banks' securities affiliates. For it was former New York Attorney General Spitzer who launched the investigation into the improper practices in the securities industry associated with initial public offerings ("IPOs"), particularly the hyping of IPOs by research analysts when these IPO companies were in fact more deserving of criticism. As is now so well-known, Eliot Spitzer was revealed to be a regular client of a high-class (i.e., expensive) prostitution ring, and he was apparently ensnared by, among other things, bank reports of the large payments that his patronage of the ring demanded. He was in effect caught by laws and regulations that are basically designed to trace the proceeds of illegal activity (known as money laundering) and recently to address the financing of terrorism.