One of the great benefits of old age is accepting the fact we never learn from our mistakes. Those of us who do learn are not important enough to matter. All the important people have the memory of a kitten. Thus we see stories like this over and over, despite allegedly having learned our lesson.

Drawn in thick marker along the map of upstate New York, the line snaked down the Niagara River and zigzagged east to outline a swath of Buffalo and its surrounding neighborhoods.

But one area of the city — neighborhoods in east Buffalo, where more than 75 percent of the city’s African-American population lives — was explicitly excluded, cut off from access to mortgage credit.

That map, ringed by a line, is at the center of a sweeping investigation by the New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, into whether banks are “redlining” — deliberately choking off mortgage lending to predominantly minority communities — people briefed on the matter said.

The investigation was expected to reach its first target as early as Tuesday, the people said, with Mr. Schneiderman’s office taking aim at Evans Bank, a regional lender whose business in the Buffalo area dates to 1920, accusing it of denying mortgages to African-Americans regardless of their credit.

The case, expected to accuse Evans Bank of violating the Fair Housing Act — a federal law intended to ensure equal access to credit — is a harbinger of other lawsuits that could be brought against some of the nation’s largest banks, several people briefed on the investigations said.

We nearly blew up civilization with insane lending rules in the last decade. That stampede to the cliff’s edge began with lawsuits claiming the banks were not lending to black people. Here we are again, doing the same thing expecting a different result.

In the suit, expected to be filed in state court, prosecutors were to outline how, since 2009, Evans Bancorp has created a map that defined the “trade area,” places in the Buffalo metropolitan region where the bank would make mortgages and other loans. The bank, prosecutors contend, deliberately excised much of Buffalo’s East Side.

Rival banks, the authorities said, lent to neighborhoods on the East Side at a far higher rate than Evans Bank, suggesting that the lending patterns did not stem from a dearth of willing minority borrowers.

If the bank actually had a map with a red line around the black neighborhoods, then they deserve what they get. That’s just stupid. If they simply refused to market to poor neighborhoods based on credit bureau reports, then that’s their business. The fact that the other banks were charging “far higher rates” says this bank is not interested in high risk lending. That’s why banks charge high rates. The risk is high. That’s news to the NY Times, but not to people with an IQ above room temperature.

That unequal access to credit, the authorities say, threatens to exacerbate the country’s yawning wealth gap. Part of the problem is that the foreclosure crisis disproportionately affected black and Hispanic communities, wiping out billions of dollars of housing wealth, federal mortgage data shows.

Mortgage lending is critical, the authorities say, to bolster homeownership — a cornerstone of upward mobility — in minority communities still trying to dig out from the recession. Denied access to credit, state and federal authorities warn, minority communities are helpless to address problems like boarded-up homes, foreclosures and blight that have long ravaged neighborhoods.

You cannot help but wonder if the writer is mildly retarded. People with high default rates should not be getting loans. The reason is they have no money. That’s why they defaulted on the loans.

As far as those boarded up homes, that’s the fault of the same “authorities” whining about inequality. Those homes should be condemned and bulldozed. But, the rich guys who own them give generously to those authorities complaining about the wealth gap. Alternatively, the homes can be condemned and taken by eminent domain and then sold off to developers. But then the prices would go up and the poor would be moved out so the children of rich white liberals can live in crime free hipster-villes.