Start of summer mailbag

"Kids," paternalism, and how I'd cover Trump

I think everyone knows I’m a pretty enthusiastic Twitter user and has also probably noticed that Twitter has been a useful acquisition funnel for Slow Boring.

But Free Speech Champion Elon Musk has been feuding on and off with the proprietors of Substack, occasionally throttling Substack links on Twitter, preventing tweets from being embedded in Substack articles, and otherwise doing things that are, in my view, bad for both platforms. I’m a little concerned that even worse things may come in the future, so we’re trying to diversify a little and now have a Slow Boring Instagram account and a Slow Boring Facebook page. If you’re active on either of those platforms, it would be a big help to us if you’d consider following us and maybe sharing/liking something that you enjoy. I don’t love the idea of asking customers for favors, but it’s a war of all against all in the attention economy, and it really would be a huge help to get some engagement there.

Some good news: If you look at real-time housing prices, the inflation situation looks better than in official data, so that component of CPI will likely improve in the next few reports. We now have 16 states deriving at least half their electricity from zero-carbon sources — Georgia is the newest member of the club thanks to the Vogtle nuclear plant opening earlier this year. The green energy revolution is marching on in Texas. I don’t know that Medicare Advantage overpayments are good news per se, but thinking about them is a reminder that we have some low-hanging fruit in terms of inflation-fighting spending cuts. Last but not least, I never know if the quantum computing hype will ever amount to anything, but this seems like a significant breakthrough.