Wall Street

Matt Levine: "One does not normally see sharp right angles in financial charts, but you could pretty much cut yourself on this chart of the volatility of the Swiss franc against the euro." Read more...

Law

Noah Feldman: "The Affordable Care Act challenge that the U.S. Supreme Court will consider later this year, and presumably decide in June, could be the biggest case of the year. It will definitely be the most important statutory interpretation case in a long time." Read more...

Megan McArdle: "Civil asset forfeiture has become a growing problem with law enforcement agencies." Good news: "Eric Holder has decided to radically curtail a federal revenue-sharing program that gave local law enforcement agencies incentives to seize assets whenever they could." Read more...

Energy

Noah Smith: "Saudi Arabia isn't the nicest ally to have. The desert kingdom just handed out a sentence of 1,000 lashes to a blogger for running a website devoted to freedom of speech. ... But you go to war with the allies you have, not the allies you wish you had. And in the global oil price war against Russia and Iran, Saudi Arabia is the U.S.'s indispensable ally." Read more...

Politics

Jonathan Bernstein: "The new senator from Iowa, Joni Ernst, has been tapped to give the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday. It's going to be awful. ... All SOTU responses are awful." Read more...

Francis Wilkinson: "Mitt Romney's tentative entry into the 2016 Republican presidential fray was intended to stop Jeb Bush in his tracks. ... Instead, it's more likely that Romney has done Bush a big favor." Read more...

Bernstein: "I don't think Mitt Romney has much chance of winning the Republican nomination again, but he's not a particularly bad candidate." Read more...

China

Adam Minter: "On Monday West Air flight PN6272 was taxiing to the gate at Jiangbei Airport in Chongqing, China, when a passenger decided, for no discernible reason, to open an emergency exit door, thereby deploying the evacuation slide. ... China is facing a crisis of airborne sanity and civility." Read more...