Here are some of tricks he used to pay his debt down early.

Mihalic said he spent months taking a flask of liquor to bars so he could continue to go out drinking with friends without running up a tab. (Be warned: this is typically illegal.) Instead of the movies, he took dates out hiking, or for bagels and coffee. He ate protein bars packed from home and walked several miles to the city, to save a few bucks on transportation, during a trip to Michigan. He got two roommates to rent out his house.

Mihalic also took steps that financial advisers typically say are a no-no: He liquidated his individual retirement account, drawing a tax penalty, and stopped contributing to his 401(k), even though his employer offers a matching contribution.

Colorado is one of 14 states that have or are setting up searchable databases designed to help people shop and compare health care options based on price and quality.

Attention Health Care Shoppers: Colorado’s New Price List For Procedures
Eric Whitney, Colorado Public Radio
Wed, 16 May 2012 10:08:33 GMT

Since Menzie pursued the job creation angle, I decided to use Fredgraph to create an unemployment graph for Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, and the United States, http://research.stlouisfed.org/fredgraph.png?g=7eN. Looking at the graph I am not sure I would be complaining too much if I lived in Wisconsin. It could be worse. The job situation is much more precarious in Illinois. Although Menzie correctly points out that the job creation in in Wisconsin is pretty anemic, both Wisconsin and Ohio unemployment rates are below the national average. This is pretty good job performance considering how poorly they rank in business tax climate. Unfortunately most of the future job gains in Wisconsin and Ohio will probably come from job losses in other states such as Illinois. If Illinois’s unemployment rate remains above the average, their government financing remains a mess, and if either Wisconsin or Ohio can improve their business tax climate to a Illinois’s level, then Wisconsin and Ohio should be successful at poaching jobs from Illinois. This should be a major part of any jobs plan along with new jobs created by green industries and shale gas.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s budget deficit has swelled to a projected $16 billion — much larger than had been predicted just months ago — and will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday.

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration released improved budget projections Thursday that would leave [Wisconsin] with a $154.5 million surplus a year from now.

The problem for the United States is that California is 13.09% of the economy in 2010 according to http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/ versus 1.71% for Wisconsin. If we look at the historical trend using a date from before the real estate collapse(2007), we get a cumulative growth of 1.40% for California versus 3.55% for all of the states combined. If 2008 was the peak of the real estate boom then it is easy to conclude that California has been stagnating for some time and we have flawed decision making that transcends the real estate bubble. Since I doubt a recovery in real estate construction will help California’s economy any time soon, they are being hit with the double whammy, real estate bubble and self inflicted wounds from bad decision making. When your plans for growing the economy fail, the only plan left is hoping that austerity measures will keep enough of your tax base around until the economy recovers. Pitting teachers, police, and social welfare programs against each other in a budget battle is never pretty. It should be interesting to see how voters respond in Wisconsin with the recall vote and in California with the tax raising referendums. Does running a balanced budget matter to voters?

Here is my first attempt at brewing Irish Red Ale. The picture was taken one week after brewing. Next week I plan to bottle the beer and in four weeks I hope to sample my a fine example of Irish Red Ale. I have already picked out my next brew. This is the time of year for a hefeweizen so my next selection is Hank’s Hefeweizen.

This photo originally uploaded by billhuber.

This article evidently rubbed the folks at The Economist the wrong way and they piped in with this analysis.

Progress through last year is quite striking, given that the crisis only began in earnest in 2010. It has occurred despite truly pitiful growth (and ongoing recession in Greece). And there is more to come.

But what of the complaint that this is all due to tax increases, which don’t count, for some reason? That, too, is mistaken:

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/economist.online.21554444.xml#ixzz1uTxwRJfl

For a person who has looked at a lot of graphs and tables in my life, the Economist analysis and graph is odd. I am not sure what these stacked bars, percentages, and projected expenses are supposed to tell me about austerity. Is that the total change in government spending since 2009? What does 2011-2013 projected spending have to do with spending over the last two years? So I downloaded the OECD data, reproduced Ms. de Rugy’s charts, and noticed this tidbit. If 2009 is the baseline then the Economist chart for Germany must be wrong. The OECD government final consumption data for Germany was $591.4 billion in 2009 and $630.1 billion in 2011 at current prices and current PPPs. Obviously this means that Germany increased their spending rather than reduced it. A similar argument can be made for France. Although the 2011 data was not available for France, it is unlikely France’s 2011 data will be below their 2009 number.

If we can agree that the OECD government final consumption data is a valid measure of austerity since it measures government spending and incorporates changes in purchasing power, then we can conclude that austerity is probably occurring in all of the countries in the graph except Germany and France.  The overall level of reduced spending in these “austerity”countries(excluding Greece) is less than -3%. It is interesting to note that only Greece and Ireland are spending less than they did 2008 while most of the countries are well above their 2008 levels. Austerity seems to be defined as slightly less spending than you spent in 2009 but higher than what you spent in 2008. Since most of the countries listed in the chart are spending at 2008 levels or higher, I agree with Ms. de Rugy that the European austerity except for Greece has not meant large spending cuts. Austerity has not occurred in Germany and France and has been pretty mild in the rest of the “austerity” countries.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.^[1]

Humpty Dumpty – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would not be surprised that the employees do not share this sentiment. Although they might agree that there may have been abuses in the past, I think they would quickly point out the good and bad points about their wages and benefit plans. Although wages are an obvious issue to the casual observer, both employees and management are primarily concerned with workplace and seniority rules as it relates to staffing. This has caused an embarrassing staffing mess in several cities and counties. It is ironic that the primary reason for a state like Ohio to embrace “right to work” statutes is because collective bargaining does not appear to allow any room for improvements on these issues. So the solution is to throw out collective bargaining. Hmm… I wonder how this is going to work.