Govt Hides from Goldman Lobbyists

The White House is making a public show of ignoring the advice of Goldman Sachs as it pursues financial reform. When seeking letters of support from major lending institutions last week, Goldman, which is under investigation by the SEC, was left off the administration's list, despite the fact that the bank is one of Wall Street's most powerful. One industry source tells The New York Times, “The message was that Goldman’s opinion doesn’t matter and that it would be negative if Goldman was supportive of what we were doing.” Goldman does still have avenues to its stamp on the legislation. It is using a number of trade groups to have its views heard, like the Financial Services Forum. And the firm's lobbyists have used intermediaries to reach out to officials. Said one of the bank's D.C. advocates, "They know they’re not going to have that much of an impact."