Rebecca Spang's Avatar

Rebecca Spang

@rlspang

Professor of History, sometimes administrator at big public university in Midwest. Writes about money, French Revolution, restaurants. Friend to vert paleo. ex UCL History; Yale SOM Visiting Fellow; Guggenheim and New America Fellow. once/future Mainer

13,375
Followers
2,485
Following
4,383
Posts
15.07.2023
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Rebecca Spang @rlspang

Preview
Tornadoes kill four, injure more than a dozen in rural Michigan Tornadoes and strong storms killed at least four people and injured more than a dozen in southern Michigan on ​Friday, destroying multiple homes and leaving hundreds of residents without power, ‌local authorities said.

Tornadoes kill four, injure more than a dozen in rural Michigan reut.rs/47xz439

07.03.2026 05:00 👍 29 🔁 17 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

But the tattoos alone are enough. Like Elon Musk, Platner lies when cornered; he can’t admit fault or take responsibility. He gave his staff a script about his Nazi symbol to recite: “He did not know the meaning at the time and covered it once he learned..” That’s a lie. 9/

06.03.2026 14:26 👍 1067 🔁 190 💬 4 📌 11
Preview
Explore Financial Disclosures From President Trump and 1,500 of His Appointees - ProPublica Use this database to explore potential conflicts of interest for President Donald Trump and his team. The documents disclose positions officials have held outside government, their assets and their de...

Wow. The corruption and self-dealing is boundless — in the billions.

06.03.2026 21:13 👍 1057 🔁 562 💬 48 📌 25
Post image

The new jobs report shows an economy in crisis. Job-killing policies, illegal tariff tax hikes, and fiscal malpractice continue to wreak havoc, while golf, luxury planes, gold laden ballrooms, and jet setting to the Olympics becomes business as usual in this White House.

06.03.2026 22:02 👍 27 🔁 16 💬 1 📌 0

A whole lot of money seems to be betting that this somehow wraps up very quickly and into a nice little bow and is about to get a very hard lesson in how geopolitics actually works when the institutions/rules-based order breaks down.

06.03.2026 18:02 👍 55 🔁 11 💬 3 📌 0

HUGE payrolls miss, wow

Feb Payrolls -92k vs +55k est/+130k prev
2m net revision -69k
Unemplomyent 4.4% vs 4.3% est/4.3% prev
Avg hourly earn YoY +3.8% vs +3.7% est+/3.7% prev
Jan Retail sales MoM -0.2% vs -0.3% est/0.0% prev
Control group est MoM +0.3% vs+0.3% est/-0.1% prev

06.03.2026 13:30 👍 1040 🔁 286 💬 18 📌 82

For some reason, I woke up this morning with my Duolingo lessons at the front of my brain. So verily I say to you:

Vi har en ny flodhäst. Jag behöver mer pengar!

06.03.2026 12:11 👍 9 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0
The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1984

The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1984

Falling Bird https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/483046

20.02.2026 19:37 👍 48 🔁 11 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

(FT) - Qatar’s energy minister has warned that war in the Middle East could “bring down the economies of the world”, predicting that all Gulf energy exporters would shut down production within weeks and drive oil to $150 a barrel.

@financialtimes.com
www.ft.com/content/be12...

06.03.2026 10:09 👍 583 🔁 280 💬 50 📌 37

Radioactive Wasps.

06.03.2026 03:17 👍 71 🔁 20 💬 10 📌 0

I’m no medical doctor* but does this look like a man with a healthy gut? I don’t think so….

* I do however have a PhD and “restorative” diets were certainly part of my research on the first restaurants

06.03.2026 02:15 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

If you took $1 billion and gave it to the endowment of a different small college each day, they could each provide a free college education to several hundred students per year in perpetuity. Instead we are using that money to bomb schools and kill students in Iran, for no clearly stated purpose.

06.03.2026 01:19 👍 1937 🔁 619 💬 21 📌 13

I think they get the sense now of the Revolution as something that was MULTI episode. Not an event, but a series. Possibly even a series that runs over multiple years. So my lecture maybe should be a TikTok, but the Revolution can't be.

06.03.2026 01:02 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Going to have to update my bio on here so it clearly says ATHEIST

06.03.2026 00:58 👍 18 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I'm really enjoying my French Revolution class this semester--maybe BECAUSE the students are, or maybe my own delight at teaching it again is contagious. In either case, I was narrating some events of 1791-92 today and a student exclaimed:

It's like a TV show! You can't make this stuff up.

06.03.2026 00:52 👍 37 🔁 0 💬 3 📌 1
Preview
World Book Day: turnip pilferers, alehouse scroungers & poachers in E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class World Book Day: turnip pilferers, alehouse scroungers & poachers in E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class I’d choose E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class (1963 still …

wp.me/p15p2Q-ggV

05.03.2026 20:40 👍 4 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0

Turns out lawlessness is not a winning strategy. See you at Nuremberg 2.0

05.03.2026 19:12 👍 13215 🔁 2556 💬 514 📌 341
Video thumbnail

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Kristi Noem.

05.03.2026 19:11 👍 22378 🔁 4933 💬 755 📌 402
Preview
White House ballroom vote delayed amid deluge of angry public comments Over 100 people have registered to speak and more than 35,000 written comments have been sent in, the vast majority of which are negative.

Symbols matter.

05.03.2026 14:57 👍 49 🔁 17 💬 2 📌 0
Preview
Iran attacks show the perils of following America’s economic lead [FREE TO READ] A growth plan of renewable energy and diversified trade is far better than guzzling fossil fuels and aligning with the US

My Trade Secrets today. Latest superpower energy offers to emerging markets:

China - cheap green tech to wean you off hydrocarbons.
US - coercion into trade deal to buy US fossil fuels, then huge chaotic war creating global oil shock.

WHICH MESSAGE WILL RESONATE? 1/2

as.ft.com/r/8b8df69a-5...

05.03.2026 09:24 👍 129 🔁 42 💬 7 📌 7

stores have no idea how much shoplifting takes place, they only know when stock doesn't match records. how much is due to human error, incorrect shipments, breakage, and theft is a guess. literally cannot know if shoplifting is on the rise.

this was a radicalizing discovery for me.

04.03.2026 22:11 👍 2601 🔁 903 💬 37 📌 28

I won a ping-pong tournament

05.03.2026 04:21 👍 16 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

It’s SO splooshy out there right now! Good thing I’m a bit over 5’2” or one of the puddles might have been too much

05.03.2026 04:16 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I feel like this new research showing that Covid *literally* infects the heart and gives "healthy" people new serious cardiac problems should somehow be bigger news.

05.03.2026 02:42 👍 153 🔁 81 💬 2 📌 2

James II fled London for France not because of the lack of political and military support but to avoid an interview with Chotiner.

05.03.2026 02:16 👍 52 🔁 15 💬 3 📌 4
Preview
Florence ICE detainee dead after untreated tooth infection, official says An ICE detainee, who had been at a Florence detention center for four months, died Monday following an untreated tooth infection.

An ICE detainee in Arizona has died of a TOOTH INFECTION after it went untreated for weeks, a local official says. He was a Haitian asylum seeker imprisoned in Florence, Arizona. @emilybregel.bsky.social reports.
tucson.com/news/local/b...

04.03.2026 16:24 👍 2920 🔁 1773 💬 168 📌 337
Preview
Inside the Underground Safe Houses Sheltering Immigrants From ICE

It is insane🤬 that we are at the "put a family in your attic" stage of US history. First: the Haitians....

But bravo to these citizens in Ohio who are *doing it* & hiding people. To be Jewish is to always wonder if our neighbors would do this for us.... #GiftArticle

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/u...

04.03.2026 18:07 👍 17 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
002: Pete Hegseth, Doug Wilson, and the God of War Listen to Reign of Error with Sarah Posner on RedCircle

"Hegseth wants the military to be more lethal," @julieingersoll.bsky.social told me, "“that kind of belligerent, combative character that you see them exhibiting is directly related to how they understand God.”

redcircle.com/shows/fbed71...

04.03.2026 13:27 👍 35 🔁 11 💬 1 📌 1
Text excerpt from NYT article linked in second skeet saying: “Most of the profits are flowing to the very affluent Americans, who are not subject to this cost-of-living crisis anyway because they’re so rich. They’re getting richer, and everyone else is dealing with inflation,” said Gregor Semieniuk, associate professor of University of Massachusetts Amherst who led the study.

The United Kingdom responded to fossil fuel companies’ bumper year by adding a windfall tax designed to capture some of the excess profits and use the money to ease the burden on households facing higher bills.

Semieniuk’s team calculated what would have happened if the U.S. government redistributed the portion of the fossil fuel industry’s 2022 profits that exceeded its 2021 returns. They found that the move would send $1,715 to every American household, which, they argued, could have helped ease the burden of inflation on lower-income households.

Text excerpt from NYT article linked in second skeet saying: “Most of the profits are flowing to the very affluent Americans, who are not subject to this cost-of-living crisis anyway because they’re so rich. They’re getting richer, and everyone else is dealing with inflation,” said Gregor Semieniuk, associate professor of University of Massachusetts Amherst who led the study. The United Kingdom responded to fossil fuel companies’ bumper year by adding a windfall tax designed to capture some of the excess profits and use the money to ease the burden on households facing higher bills. Semieniuk’s team calculated what would have happened if the U.S. government redistributed the portion of the fossil fuel industry’s 2022 profits that exceeded its 2021 returns. They found that the move would send $1,715 to every American household, which, they argued, could have helped ease the burden of inflation on lower-income households.

Text excerpt from the FT article in the second skeet saying: 
	Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/.
	https://www.ft.com/content/43fe2f44-d3ea-45c9-a641-e6f0e68949af?accessToken=zwAAAZy4l4RPkc9D_i9E0-pFydOmQebw5olJrw.MEUCIH4nsXTramXEOh6tWM6n9rrMqI0FnMfHQsz7tU0HufXAAiEAx8x5MmOYujURIqdhdxGDYHysYSEB2eVuSpM9n1iDuhA&segmentId=e95a9ae7-622c-6235-5f87-51e412b47e97&shareType=enterprise&shareId=a96149bb-d68a-4bc5-b023-2174a60fd9c5

	Research on the oil and gas crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 showed that the gains of the boon on energy producers were not equally shared.

The wealthiest 1 per cent of the US population eventually received more than 50 per cent of energy companies’ windfall from that particular surge in prices, according to a paper published in September 2025.

“If anything [the US has] become a more powerful exporter and producer of fossil fuels since 2022. And of course, their oil majors are active globally. So I think [US shareholders] are poised to take advantage even more [now],” said Gregor Semieniuk, a professor at the University of Massachusetts who was one of the authors of the research. “Wealth distributions don’t change overnight.”

Text excerpt from the FT article in the second skeet saying: Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/. https://www.ft.com/content/43fe2f44-d3ea-45c9-a641-e6f0e68949af?accessToken=zwAAAZy4l4RPkc9D_i9E0-pFydOmQebw5olJrw.MEUCIH4nsXTramXEOh6tWM6n9rrMqI0FnMfHQsz7tU0HufXAAiEAx8x5MmOYujURIqdhdxGDYHysYSEB2eVuSpM9n1iDuhA&segmentId=e95a9ae7-622c-6235-5f87-51e412b47e97&shareType=enterprise&shareId=a96149bb-d68a-4bc5-b023-2174a60fd9c5 Research on the oil and gas crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 showed that the gains of the boon on energy producers were not equally shared. The wealthiest 1 per cent of the US population eventually received more than 50 per cent of energy companies’ windfall from that particular surge in prices, according to a paper published in September 2025. “If anything [the US has] become a more powerful exporter and producer of fossil fuels since 2022. And of course, their oil majors are active globally. So I think [US shareholders] are poised to take advantage even more [now],” said Gregor Semieniuk, a professor at the University of Massachusetts who was one of the authors of the research. “Wealth distributions don’t change overnight.”

Who stands to profit as energy prices are rising due to the escalating war in the Middle East? NYT and FT quoting our research on the 2022 energy crisis! Spoiler: in the West it's mainly affluent shareholders.
High time to dust off the discussions on excess profit taxes & strategic price controls.

04.03.2026 11:36 👍 101 🔁 52 💬 2 📌 3
Preview
Trump Escalates Confrontation With Banks Over Crypto Agenda President Donald Trump warned banks against weakening his cryptocurrency agenda and pushed for passage of a market-structure bill known as the Clarity Act, escalating a confrontation with the financial industry over legislation that would reshape how digital assets are regulated in the US.

Correction: Donald Trump warned banks against weakening his cryptocurrency agenda and pushed for passage of a market-structure bill known as the Clarity Act

04.03.2026 04:34 👍 136 🔁 84 💬 23 📌 7