Rolling Obituary Thread: 2019

Volcker was the last Fed chair to think Big Business is awful and needs regulating.

Erik Loomis:

It’s not as if I am downplaying the role of inflation in the 1970s. When you have inflation clocking at well above 10%, that’s a problem. A fix was needed. The first major problem I have with Volcker and his kind is that thanks to them, we have vastly overlearned the lessons of the 1970s. The people who rule our economy will go to any lengths to hold down inflation, no matter the cost to people. Nothing matters more. Never mind that inflation is simply one of many issues that a balanced economy has to manage, nothing else really matters. Never mind that the global and national economies are vastly different than they were forty years ago. That’s an irrelevancy for those who subscribe to the religion of no inflation. To some extent, it’s like the Populists trying to argue with the laissez-faire establishment of the first Gilded Age that their problems were real and needed relief. So when they managed to semi-takeover the Democratic Party in 1896 with Bryan’s silver beliefs, the economic elite absolutely freaked out that the barbarians were at the gate and they really developed the first modern political election campaign to be sure McKinley won and principles were held to. Once again, we are in an era where people have real financial problems that some inflation (not 20%, but maybe 6-7%) would help alleviate those issues. And once again, economic-religious doctrine gets in the way of any policies that would help working Americans. Volcker has no responsibility for that.

Moreover, Volcker really reveled it. He was happy to cause pain in order to achieve his desired goals. He stated, “The standard of living of the average American has to decline,” leading he and others in the Carter administration to declare fairly open war on the unions helping Americans increase their standard of living. It was Volcker who first brought the ideas of Milton Friedman into the American government when the former took over the Federal Reserve. Carter’s team initially did not want to pick Volcker for the job because he was so rigid and was “very right wing.”

i'm not sure it's volcker's fault that the people in power remain obsessed with inflation (or reagan); probably bound to happen when said people are all pushing eighty

let's steal the finnish party leaders imo

this @_TimBarker piece on Volcker and his legacy was excellent and worth reading among what I’m sure will be a lot of hagiography https://t.co/FNE3fFnxdJ

— Max Read (@max_read) December 9, 2019

“The standard of living of the average American has to decline,"

is this not, in so many words, a position many ilxors could be seen as taking bytimes iirc

not if you mean the mathematical average aiui

fair & balanced

I didn't know Volcker was considered conservative. In my lifetime I knew him for his involvement with Dodd-Frank and for his support of estate taxes.

Yuri Luzhkov, former Mayor of Moscow dead at 83. Hugely influential in turning the city into a glittering high-tech megalopolis via development contracts that almost exclusively benefited his wife. A giant of the grift.

Marie Fredriksson, formerly of Roxette. Kinda surprised she was 61.

Brain tumor.

Wow. They had some great songs/productions.

It wasn't unexpected, as tumour was found years ago, and she hasn't been able to gig since 2016, but it's still sad.

Screenwriter Barrie Keeffe:

https://variety.com/2019/film/obituaries-people-news/barrie-keeffe-dead-dies-screenwriter-the-long-good-friday-1203431141/?fbclid=IwAR2dSA-RBy5NpMbMyi5gNu0_jTTIC1fBETh-BwkRna6A6RFL1G58UboGj8E

'Micks, pig-eyed Micks. Red Mick terrorist scum'.

Philip McKeon, a Child Star on the Sitcom Alice, Dies at Age 55 https://t.co/17kCk8jZlE

— People (@people) December 10, 2019

TV naturalist David Bellamy https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/dec/11/tv-naturalist-david-bellamy-dies-aged-86

Grapple me grapenuts!

Heaven needed a climate change denier

a conservationist climate change denier at that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAHsSY3RpUM

Limmy
Limmy
59 seconds ago
RIP

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/22/article-2266188-1714D64E000005DC-817_634x354.jpg

bellamy once described my dad as the best botanist in the UK

(i am neither competent to assess this judgment nor inclined to challenge it, he was the best dad in the UK tho so RIP DB)

his postal vote should be considered void now :p

danny aiello, 86

RIP, star of Godfather II, Papa Don't Preach, and Hudson Hawk.

do the right thing! moonstruck!

The Professional!

I recall him talking about arguing with Spike Lee that labelling his script for Do The Right Thing as "Pizza-Man" was racist!

The Purple Rose of Cairo!

Hell, his Once Upon a Time in America role, brief as it is. Totally forgot he was in it until I saw it again this summer -- just a short sequence, but a classic profane, raging and hilarious performance.

danny aiello, 86

was 31 years older than nic cage when cast as his brother in moonstruck

Rockabilly also-ran Jack Scott, best known for the song "The Way I Walk," which both Robert Gordon (with Link Wray on guitar!) and the Cramps covered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyF0_vRuEgU

RIP Aiello... this Broadway ad is the first time nearly everyone near NYC became aware of him, and the first words i always associate him with are "It's gonna be some pahty"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz8p6-LconE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2MXvhA8kY8

RIP. Soon as I saw the word Broadway there I thought “Gemini.”

Also RIP Jack Scott. Love that tune and got to see Robert Gordon do it live once, albeit with Chris Spedding instead of Link Wray on guitar, which was still pretty cool.

that tune being “The Way I Walk,” don’t know from “Geraldine.”

I saw Gordon with Spedding once, too, at the Lone Star Roadhouse in NYC.

RIP Danny Aiello. His performance in the @DavidKoechner penned "Hi-C and Turkey" sketch on SNL is one of the all-time greats. #SaigonWhoores https://t.co/KBoya5eWxU pic.twitter.com/UTv3Lypcvv

— Mark Graham (@unclegrambo) December 13, 2019

Roy Loney of the Flamin' Groovies passed this morning after surgery.

RIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR0JmzdzbC8

Friend says he met him a few times and he was a nice guy.

Anyone seen confirmation of this?

Damn RIP Gershon Kingsley who wrote THE GREATEST SONG OF ALL TIME don't at mehttps://t.co/0FNLzQGo0u

— Robert Beatty (@EdSunspot) December 13, 2019

From the family of Gershon Kingsley: Gershon passed away peacefully in his sleep on the morning of December 10th, surrounded by loved ones at home.

— Gershon Kingsley (@GershonKingsley) December 13, 2019

Rough Fuckin' Day...

Was about to say...

oh no