Looking to Settle, Goldman Launches Lobbying Blitz

Goldman Sachs' lobbying efforts have gone from cavalier to frenzied as it faces what could be the worst crisis in its history. The firm has assembled a high-powered team of Washington insiders to do battle, even as the New York Post reports that, in wake of the beating Goldman took Tuesday in Congress, a settlement with the SEC is "almost a certainty" given the agency's "unlimited supply of ammunition."

Analysts say, however, that no amount of PR spending will fix Goldman's "radioactive" image in the short term, which is why it needs to avoid a public scuffle with the SEC. '"They can't conduct business as usual," Steve Fraser, author of Wall Street: America's Dream Palace, tells the Washington Post. "I don't think any more secretaries of Treasury are about to come out of Goldman for quite some time." (More SEC stories.)