What's Past Is . . . Prologue?

Enough of the Mad Men era. Let's move on to the advertising archives of 1982.

You know about the Great Bull Market that began thirty years ago. 1982, what a great time to invest!

Now turn your Hindsight Device  to "Off."

in 1982 the stock market had been declared dead and a recession had begun. To survive hard times, U.S. Trust expanded its banking operations. The strategy may have helped in the short run, but the future belonged to megabanks. Even The Bank of New York, a moderately-sized commercial bank founded by Alexander Hamilton, ended up merging with Mellon Bank. U.S. Trust became a wealth-management arm of Bank of America.

The greatest megabank was created by Sandy Weill. In 1998 Weill merged Travellers, which owned Salomon Smith Barney, with Citibank to form Citigroup. At that time Citigroup ranked as the largest financial services company in the world.

Citigroup barely survived the Great Recession. Now retired, Sandy Weill astonished the financial world this week by admitting megabanks were a mistake. We probably ought to bring back the Glass-Steagall era, Weill told CNBC, once again separating investment banks from commercial banks that hold federally-insured deposits. Wow!