You mean, like now?  Sorry, couldn't resist.  We know we don't get held to the same standards, and all I will say about internal deliberations is that we understood this would be the coverage. 

(For those outside Minnesota: The legislature and governor have 10 more days to pass a budget without a special session; there has been no agreement at this time, though both houses are controlled by the same party as Mark Dayton.)

My thanks to Joe and Clark for their input on the scope of the amendment the GOP put on.  That's why I wanted to write this, to get that view.  Teresa Collett, a legal scholar and former Congressional candidate, agrees with you.  We will have a "Chick-Fil-A court case" (if I can create a generic) up here in the next few years, I predict, and I don't like the chances of right to religious conscience.

In re FC: There was no doubt in my race that part of the turnout was motivated to vote against the amendment.  We also had a voter ID amendment on the ballot and the Democrats motivated people to "be Minnesota Nice: Vote no twice."  It worked.  Voter ID, which had polled in the high 60s when added to the ballot, lost.  (I should be clear that I don't blame the amendment for my own loss.  It's a tough district for any Republican in a presidential election year when your presidential candidate makes no more than a token effort in the state.)

I dispute that it's a Ponzi scheme, since there's no return to be made on mining the coins (the cost of running your computer to mine them has mostly been greater than the value of a bitcoin.) And it's certainly not fiat money, since fiat means 'government decree.'Any asset can be a money (by which we mean a means of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account) if the asset holds value indefinitely and is accepted in trade by others. Bitcoins are not widely accepted (yet) and, as Judith notes, fluctuate significantly in value. But so too do many other government-issued monies. Many citizens in the developing world hold dollars or euros not just as a store of value but as a means of conducting larger transactions (where the number of banknotes in the domestic currency needed is inconveniently bulky.)I am watching bitcoins with interest, and I think someone will use the technology to perfect an asset privately issued that has all the qualities of money. Maybe bitcoin will be it, maybe not. But it's solved a couple of technological problems at least that moves us towards a private money.

My memory wasn't as good as I thought -- I knew they had done something like this before but couldn't place it.  Bloomberg came through.  The EU's handling of this almost makes you think we have a good functional government in the US.  Almost.

Eric Hines is correct, as I understand it, there was a €400 limit on withdrawals, but the machines got run out very quickly.  The latest is that the government is renegotiating the haircuts, but still plans a 5% reallocation of deposits under €100,000.  The Russians sleep a little less easily...

I checked a couple of banks; savings accounts pay less than a percent and time deposits around 3 years pay near 5%.  Foreigners can get 8% on a dollar account, 7% for a euro account, for terms over 1 year.

I very much like Black Book of Communism. I would also recommend the work of Rudolph Rummel, whose website http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM will provide some troubling information on the deaths caused by communism and totalitarianism.

Yes, this one is odd.  He's spelling Paul a bit, but also trying to catch a tired senator in a legalistic argument to score points.  So Harry left Dick to babysit the filibuster?  Must not have had dinner plans...

My first thought on the bathroom break was "Mason jar".  I'd've paid a page to bring me one.  Worked for long car trips.

Second, while Cruz is taking the reins, unless Paul is concerned he'd stop in a moment, I think he could leave and return before Cruz finishes his remark without someone throwing a fit.  I am looking up permanent rules right now.

My night janitor just came in to take out my trash, says to me "I know it's an important question, and I think they should answer it, but there's <stuff> that needs to get done, and they must be tired hearing his voice."  I asked what needs doing, and he said "you know, fiscal cliff.  They keep having to do stuff with a cliff.  Shouldn't they do something to get away from the cliff?"

I guess that's what the other side hopes America thinks tonight. 

Via Guy Benson at Townhall, the list of helpers so far:  "Rubio, Lee, Cruz, Moran, Toomey, Chambliss, Cornyn. Dem: Wyden (Reid doesn't count)." 

There are more GOP senators now (Toomey and Cornyn) spelling him with questions.  I wonder how long they can continue this, but it appears now that the leadership has given others permission to help Sen. Paul.  Good for them.

"Therefore, O patriotic housewives, sally out tomorrow early into the streets and go to the wonderful sales which are everywhere advertised. You will do yourselves good – for never were things so cheap, cheap beyond your dreams. Lay in a stock of household linen, of sheets and blankets to satisfy all your needs." -- John Maynard Keynes, on the BBC, December 1931.

@drlorentz in a piece I am writing for legislators, I note that in a survey in 2003, 72% of the general public supported an increase in the minimum wage.  We've known this for years.  So what?  Are we supposed to lie about the econometrics when proponents keep shoving those few hey-no-problem studies at us? 

Here's the problem:  Is there nobody helped by the minimum wage?  Of course not.  Some people are going to keep their jobs and make more money.  (Their work conditions may suck a little more, but perhaps they wanted that tradeoff more than their employers did.  We don't know.)  Lots of others will lose and the losses will be greater than the gains.  But they don't fall evenly, and that's why politics gets involved.

See this on the size and source of unfunded liability.  If it's behind the WSJ paywall try this instead.  For the really wonky stuff, go here.

@drlorentz In any welfare analysis we teach in economics, we teach that the social loss of a price floor or ceiling rises exponentially as one increases the floor further above the equilibrium.  The costs grow geometrically.  So it's pretty normal to argue that small changes have less impact but bigger ones much larger, and that's where the limiting principle applies.

@fastflyer exactly so. And that's a real loss for training inexperienced workers, as there becomes a bigger hurdle for them to enter the labor force.

In his 1956 book The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, Mises wrote about this very problem.  Unlike most professions where one mostly has one's peers in one's social circle, intellectuals go to conferences and universities with people far superior to themselves, and many are unhappy that someone has gotten the spot in the pecking order they think they deserve themselves.  Capitalism does that; observe any AAA baseball team.  Mises wrote, "They loathe capitalism because it has assigned to this other man the position they themselves would like to have."

I always thought Mises was harsh on this point, but the more time you spend in academic circles, the more people this hypothesis seems to explain.