Talks resume in Hollywood; economy wobbles, local hopes briefly spike

Talks resume in Hollywood; economy wobbles, local hopes briefly spike


By Mark London Williams

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Nikke Finke, with her usual judiciously placed above-the-line leaks, reports on her "Deadline Hollywood" blog that WGA sources are telling her a backroom deal has, essentially, already been hammered out, and that with the official resumption of talks between the WGA and AMPTP, that capital "S" labor dispute may be settled by Christmas. Which is pretty good news, coming in what was supposed to be a news blackout, so let's hope it pans out.

One thing that seems to be different this time 'round, compared to the strike of '88, is the that everyone affected by the strike is talking to each other, and we don't just mean over coffee; i.e., the landscape of blogs and websites – which make Deadline Hollywood's "nexus" like status possible, for example – ratchets up the timeline for how the dispute unfolds, and even how fast the blowback begins.

This is, in part, because the social pressure to end the strike, grows ever faster – which means that with talks resuming, the enmity for both sides, if those talks in fact collapse, will be enormous.

That pressure is fueled by panic – a sense that the economy, in macro terms, is shaky. This very morning, for example, comes the report of 6,000 people in Cleveland applying for 300 available Wal-Mart jobs, Citicorp announcing layoffs of up to 45,000, and one of the main columnists for the Financial Times, Wolfgang Munchau, declaring the dollar is on its "last lap as the only anchor currency" in the world.

Ominously, he notes: "The financial flows back into the US appear to have come to a sudden stop this summer. The US Treasury International Capital System (TIC) data show a massive drop in net foreign purchases of US long-term securities since the end of June."
In other words, the rest of the world is ceasing to trust the U.S. buck as a very viable currency. What will that portend?

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Everyone knows the entire economy is hanging by a thread. Everyone is terrified an overlong strike will cut that thread –regionally speaking – in ways that can scarcely be imagined.

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