• Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Washington Post, Friday, July 16, 2010 11 AM

Reading Jonathan Weil's coverage of the Securities and Exchange Commission's settlement agreement yesterday with Goldman Sachs, one walks away with the notion that it gained a lot more than the $550 million the brokerage agreed to pay (most of it to the investors it allegedly mislead). In short, the SEC scored a PR coup, and "finally can boast that it's doing God's work again."

Some of it has to do with what Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein can't do. He can't deny that Goldman committed securities fraud. "He'll just have to suck it up and take the hit," Weil writes. "It's 'the right outcome for our firm, our shareholders and our clients,' as Goldman said in a press release after the settlement was disclosed."

But even more incredible, Weil says, is what Goldman did do. It admitted it made "a mistake." Keep in mind, though, that it's not admitting that it committed securities fraud.

Coincidentally (although some wags feel otherwise), Congress ended more than a year of wrangling yesterday and passed the most ambitious overhaul of financial regulation in generations, Dennis Brady reports in the Washington Post. Among other things, the bill establishes an independent consumer bureau within the Federal Reserve to protect borrowers against abuses in lending practices. It also gives the government enhanced power to shut down troubled financial companies.

Business Week reporters Lorraine Woellert and Joshua Zumbrun write, "the imminent reshaping of U.S. banking regulation creates a new center of gravity in Washington, a consumer czar with thousands of employees, a $400 million budget and power to impose federal rules on mortgages, credit cards and lay-away plans." The very same lobbyists who failed to kill the bill are now jockeying to influence President Barack Obama, who picks to lead the agency, they say .

Read the whole story at Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Washington Post »