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June 9, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
By David Callaway, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) "” "?Twas the 18th of April in Seventy-Five, and hardly a man is still alive who remembers that famous day and year of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. One if by land and two if by sea and I on the opposite shore shall be ready to ride and spread the alarm "” Hey you Brits, don't be taking our arms.
With apologies to Longfellow, whose real poem from 1860 doesn't mention Paul Revere warning the British, we are at another great moment in revisionist history. Read "Paul Revere's Ride" here.
Morgan Stanley offered a glimpse into Wall Street's future, and the outlook has changed so much from the heady days of the past that the firm is planning to keep a close watch on BlackBerry usage.
Only this time it's not Sarah Palin's wacky attempt to brand old Paul Revere as a pioneering member of the NRA. It's our banking overlords on Wall Street seeking to convince Congress and the Federal Reserve to stop meddling with banking regulations or face new financial peril.
In the role of Paul Revere this week we have Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co. /quotes/zigman/272085/quotes/nls/jpm JPM +1.46% , who dramatically rode into an Atlanta banking conference and confronted Fed chief Ben Bernanke with his concerns that too many new capital rules on big banks will slow or halt the economic recovery.
Continuing his leadership of Wall Street's "Don't Tread on Me" campaign to weaken the Dodd-Frank legislation, Dimon said he fears that 10 or 20 years from now history will show the government impeded recovery with all of its new regulations.
And by seizing the headlines for the afternoon, Dimon planted the seed of revisionism that will indeed have historians debating the government's role vs. the big banks for decades to come.
History is replete with false accounts, tales and warnings that have become accepted wisdom. Sticking with the U.S. history theme, we have George Washington's cherry tree and wooden teeth, Abe Lincoln doing his homework on the back of a shovel with a piece of coal, and John Kennedy famously calling himself a jelly donut in German during a speech at the Berlin Wall. All great stories. None true.
They say history is written by the winners. But it's also written by those who shout the loudest, or in Sarah Palin's case, get to Wikipedia first. In our recovery from the worst financial crisis and recession since the Great Depression, it's a battle of messaging between Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on one side, and the great celebrity bankers of our age on the other, fought on the battlefield of a 24/7 internet news cycle.
The Great Depression spawned the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated banking and investment banking activities and led to decades of relative peace and prosperity in U.S. financial services. It was repealed in 1999, again with pressure from the banks, and the great real estate/derivatives boom was on, with all the consequences we now understand.
It's unlikely the latest crisis or attempts at regulation will yield anything as important or beneficial as Glass-Steagall. Especially as the war of spin will be fought in the months leading up to a Presidential election. But that won"?t stop bankers like Dimon and other advocates of unfettered regulation, such as former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, from loudly campaigning to weaken financial reform as much as possible.
Lost in the battle, though, are the millions of Americans now jobless, homeless or under severe financial duress because of the activities of the banks in the final years leading up to the crisis of 2008. They are still seething with anger. Anger at the politicians. Anger at the media. But most of all anger at the banks, for helping cause the crisis and for continuing to refuse to lend and help bring the economy out of its doldrums.
Historians will debate the causes of the crisis for decades, and it's certain that at least some of the lore coming from these troubled economic times will not ring true.
For now though, less than three years from the flashpoint of the crisis and still suffering its effects, let's try to at least remember its lessons and take the appropriate regulatory steps to protect ourselves and our financial institutions from the next crisis.
For if history is any guide whatsoever, there will always be another one.
David Callaway is editor-in-chief of MarketWatch.
"Kevin Marder back. One of MarketWatch's original market writers has returned. And he's scared about this market. http://bit.ly/lDx7xj" 1:44 p.m. EDT, June 9, 2011 from dcallaway
"The midnight ride of Jamie Dimon: Like Sarah Palin's wacky version of Paul Revere's ride, Dimon's warning t... http://on.mktw.net/khpEwx" 11:03 p.m. EDT, June 8, 2011 from dcallaway
"Don't see Apple shares fall on announcement day with Jobs very often. http://bit.ly/kIruTP" 3:23 p.m. EDT, June 6, 2011 from dcallaway
"Check out our new columnist from London, Matt Lynnn. http://bit.ly/itDzQT" 9:56 a.m. EDT, June 6, 2011 from dcallaway
"http://www.marketwatch.com/story/soros-is-selling-his-gold-should-you-too-2011-06-06" 9:56 a.m. EDT, June 6, 2011 from dcallaway
David Callaway is editor-in-chief of MarketWatch, responsible for the global news coverage of 100 journalists in 12 bureaus in the U.S., Europe and Asia. A financial journalist for more than 20 years, Callaway has worked for Bloomberg News, the Boston Herald, and assorted television and cable stations as a reporter, columnist and commentator.
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