OpenSecrets.org

Goldman Sachs spent a record high amount of money on lobbying in 2008 while its share price plummeted, it fired 10 percent of its employees, and it received $10 billion in direct taxpayer bailout money and an additional (and furtive) $13 billion share of AIG's "counterparty" bailout money.

Headlines now declare that Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein has been humbled into calling for "regulatory reforms" and executive pay limits, though nothing is probably further than the truth — calling for reform while bailout payments to Goldman are now being audited is a shrewd piece of advice by Goldman's lobbyists and publicists.

Goldman spent $2.7 million on lobbying during 2007, compared with $3.3 million in 2008, a 22 percent increase, based on OpenSecrets.org figures.

At the same time, its share price (adjusted close) fell from 197.11 in January 2008 to 83.93 in December 2008, a 58 percent drop.

CNN reported Tuesday (April 7) that Blankfein now finds the global financial crisis sparked by Goldman and other Wall Street investment firms "deeply humbling." That admission comes on the heels of the announcement by Neil Barofsky, inspector-general of the Treasury's TARP bailout of banks and investment houses is auditing AIG's payments of bailout money to Goldman and other firms.

Again, a good PR move by Goldman's Blankfein. But after all, the firm has a valuable in at Treasury who's intimately familiar with Goldman's strategies and lobbyists: Secretary Tim Geithner's chief of staff, Mark Patterson, was an in-house lobbyist for Goldman before leaving the firm in April 2008.

In January, Patterson returned to "public service" as Geithner's chief of staff — despite President Barack Obama's pledge that lobbyists and others will not be using that revolving door. As USA Today reported at the time:

That would leave Patterson with a lot of free time every day.

Click on the following video for Obama's vow in October 2008 to close the revolving door: