Ran into Brian Sherlock at CB this morning, he told me and a few other eager listeners that we have a tentative agreement with management.
Part of the agreement is that they wouldn't announce its details until after tomorrow's election. Brian did divulge that we will receive no raise for the first year of the three-year deal, when asked if our COLA would be reinstated in the remaining two years he declined to answer citing the non-disclosure provision. He did say that in exchange for accepting a year without even a cost-of-living raise, we "made them pay."
He added that they had consulted a "labor economist" and that the latter okayed the deal. Brian then went on to explain that because of the stimulus and TARP, the government has doubled [1] the amount of money in circulation, and there was a danger of inflation during the life of this contract. ( Ya dont say? ) He then went on to explain how more money in the economy without a corresponding increase in the production of goods and services causes prices to rise. At this point I interrupted and politely pointed out to him and the others that I'd been writing on this topic and that I'd submitted some of these essays to him for publishing in our newspaper, which he had not done. [2] He then asked me what my name was and told me that he was determined to get my essays into print. At this point I had to run, he gave me one of his famous bone-crusher handshakes and off I went.
[1] I doubt this figure but it's moot. What's important is that the TARP money is just beginning and has yet to be released into circulation by the big banks. By the time all of these funds hit the streets, the money supply will be more than doubled.
[2] It was before the printing of the latest issue of our paper that I submitted "Diet COLA" ( archived in this blog ). I cannot complain because that issue contained a good deal of first-rate essays. It was the best issue ever, in my opinion. I mentioned this to Brian.
