How many people using this phrase predicted that 2008 was going to be a bull year for stocks and that housing would be fine?

Employees are more expensive than contractors.

1. Contractors will be 80-90% gone.
2. Department Managers will be “encouraged” to get rid of those they have been wanting to
3. Some, perhaps many projects will be put “on hold indefinitely”. This is where most direct layoffs (Full-timers and contractors) will probably occur.
4. Another thing I havent seen mentioned is: if not layoffs, then many people will have their hours cut(some people drastically) with the semi-direct result of them looking for FULL-Employment elsewhere
5. Obviously virtually no hiring(which has already stopped), they will just move good people around.

What do you all think?

Also, what would you say even a 5% manpower reduction(FT and/or Contractor) at Microsoft would have on the housing market over the course of 2009?

Absolutely. Ultimately, I don’t care if someone is full time or not — I care about the quality of their work. I work with many contractors and vendors, and there are good ones and bad ones, just like with full time employees. But the idea that it’s only contractor/vendors doing “tangible” work at MS is ludicrous (and worth mocking).

Because, you know, we full time employees don’t get anything tangible done – it’s only the contractors and vendors.

To be fair, vendors and contractors do important work. We have a contractor on our team who fulfills a very important infrastructure role. If he were to be cut then someone else on the team would have to do that and we would have less manpower for feature work.

Starbucks gets bought out by Yum Brands.
Boeing delays the Dreamliner again.
Amazon, despite having a good holiday season, lays off workers and moves some of the backroom functions to other states.
Microsoft finally buys Yahoo, but keeps the core in the San Francisco area as part of the deal.
Paccar does something (I still have no idea what they do).

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/planning-to-retire/2008/12/18/fedex-eliminates-401k-match-for-employees.html

Now employees can only sink their own money into losing investements…

I would agree with that, unfortunately I read it as $28m which is about 70 median priced houses if it all went to KC.

I never dreamed of 1 Month Free for new customers who rent an apartment (near MS). This reminds of the days in Dallas, where 1st month is free when you sign a 8 month Rental Agreement.

Renting is now cheaper and more affordable in Redmond.

What I was discussing this evening with a short sale client is that I don’t see the Real Estate Owned inventory. There has to be a huge back log of foreclosed properties out there that I don’t see in the market place.

As a speculation I would say that there are rentals or forebearance homes that banks own but are holding off the market. $28B may go a ways on getting that inventory unloaded unnoticed or looked at as a compassionate thing.

As a Microsoft stockholder, what exactly are you saying the w-2 employees do all day? Create intangible nothingness? Who created the brand new XBox 360 sitting in my living room?

I wouldn’t necessarily classify this as “foreclosure aid”

To me, foreclosure aid would be more like help for homeowners facing foreclosure. This sounds more like help for the the affordable housing crisis.

Pretty good movie I thought…

Great job making the actors look like the real people, except for Goebbels, he was a bit too scary looking compared to the original.

The Himmler actor was a dead ringer, IMHO.

Back to housing…

I use to live in an apartment complex on the eastside that Microsoft use to contract with to put up new employees, temps, and people in town for training. When I first moved in, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Microsoft type. When I left a couple of months ago, the apartment complex was emptying out. Microsoft is, at the least, not hiring as robustly as before.