CHRIS PALADINO, a Microsoft employee who was hired in 2006, didn’t worry too much about his job when the economy began to sour last fall. The company employs nearly 90,000 people.

“I thought Microsoft was so stable, it wouldn’t be touched,” he said. Now, as one of the 1,400 employees who received layoff notices in January, Mr. Paladino is worried — about making the mortgage payments on his home.

Mr. Paladino gathered user feedback for the Xbox games division of Microsoft. This month he started his own consulting company, Promethium Marketing, with two colleagues who were also laid off.

But, “I would never have chosen to leave Microsoft,” he said. “I had a great job. I worked with a great team.”

Leaving the company has not always been so traumatic. Microsoft has a long history of making employees part-owners of the company, by granting them stock and stock options.

From executive to secretary, many employees received thousands of stock options. Microsoft’s stock price rose from about $2.50 a share in 1992 to almost $60 in 1999, and roughly 10,000 of those employees became millionaires.

When employees left the company in those days, it was overwhelmingly by their own choice. They were off to a new adventure, starting a business or a charity, or just planning to have fun, said Rob Horwitz, the chief executive of Directions on Microsoft, an information technology analyst firm that has been tracking the company for 17 years.

Notable alumni from that time rebuilt the Professional Bowlers Association; created the charity Room to Read, which builds schools in poor countries; and founded the Cranium game company (which was sold to Hasbro).

Other Microsoft alumni started venture capital firms or followed more personal dreams, creating enterprises like the Cameron Catering Company of Seattle, which focuses on green events, or the Casa Cupula, a bed-and-breakfast for gay travelers in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. One alumnus built his own airplane and another rode along with Russian cosmonauts on a space mission. The sky was literally the limit.

The economy has changed all that. With Microsoft’s stock price now below $20 a share, any stock options granted in the last 10 years have little to no value, and the outright stock grants have lost value.

So rather than leaving on their own terms for a new adventure, some recently separated employees are now looking for any professional job they can get. (Microsoft declined to comment for this article.)

Read More…

A New Crop of Job Hunters, With Microsoft Résumés – NYTimes.com.

So many readers have emailed me to warn that we are going into another Great Depression that I decided to find out which companies and sectors did best after the Crash of 1929. With the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index down 39% last year and another 8.5% this year, it can’t hurt to learn what separated the winners from the losers back then.

Heath Hinegardner

The good news is that some stocks and industries did indeed do much better than average. The bad news is that the average was ghastly, and even the best stocks had three rotten years in a row.

With the help of the Center for Research in Security Prices, or CRSP, at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, I sought to answer this question: If you had invested on Jan. 1, 1930, after the crash already had destroyed a third of the stock market’s value, where would you have gotten the greatest gains?

The short answer: In 1930, 1931 and 1932, nowhere. There was no real refuge in the storm; even Benjamin Graham, the great value investor, lost 60% over those three years.

According to CRSP, only one industry had positive returns from 1930 through 1932: logging. The two stocks in that tiny sector, Diamond Match and Mengel Co., whittled out a cumulative gain of 40% for the three-year period. Diamond turned timber into matchsticks; Mengel made trees into packing materials, primarily for daily necessities like tobacco and soap.

To find a major sector with significantly positive returns, CRSP needed to stretch our measurement period into a fourth year, 1933, when the market finally rebounded partway from its earlier losses by rising a record 54%. Even then, out of 120 industries, only 13 managed to generate gains from 1930 through 1933.

The only clear winner: cheap vices. Among the sectors with positive returns were cigarettes, cigars and tobacco, sugar and confectionery products, and fats and oils, which each gained between 1.6% and 7.5% annually. Those gains were better than they look, because deflation raised their purchasing power by an annual average of more than 6% over this period. It seems there was good money to be made investing in guilty pleasures that people could afford even in the hardest of times: sweets, smokes and fried food.

Complete article at:

1930s Lessons: Stocks for After a Crash – WSJ.com.

This past weekend’s announcement by Facebook that the company would be opening up its APIs to allow for posting of notes, videos and more has left some companies scrambling to add new functionality to existing applications. Below we’ve highlighted a handful of the ones that let you post to Facebook from a desktop client, be it standalone or something that plugs into your browser.

We’ve talked to the people at each one to see when you should be expecting to be able to make use of the new API in each app:

“Blogo already supports Facebook status updates through its integration with Ping.fm,” says Benjamin Jackson, Blogo’s technical director. “As for more robust Facebook integration, you can be absolutely certain that we’ll be running to integrate this as quickly as possible. We’ll be shooting to send out a beta next week.”

Friendbar creator Edo Segal says “we love the fact that facebook [is] opening up more services,” and “definitely plan to include support for these API’s in upcoming versions.” Segal also says he wants a higher level of access to that data. “For example, to be able to post comments to users photos and status updates, and to directly send a Facebook message to a user via the API.”

Posting of notes through Ping.fm is up and running. “We’re still assembling some other ideas on how to use their new features,” says founder and CEO Sean McCullough. Worth a mention is that many of the services on this list go through Ping.fm to re-syndicate user messages.

“Sociagami has always been committed to deep integration with social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace and we will definitely be taking advantage of the new API features in 2.0,” says Charlie Robbins, director of social network integration for Sociagami. “Unfortunately, using an API based implementation will mean that Sociagami 2.0 will not have the messaging and wall posting features that came with 1.0.”

Working on it for an upcoming build. “The video part will be an important one!” says Loic Le Meur, CEO of Seesmic which acquired/owns Twhirl. The latest version, which was released on Monday added in Ping.fm support, letting you cross post messages to your Facebook profile.

“Yes, we are actively working on implementing the new Facebook API and rolling it out ASAP,” says Regan Fletcher, Yoono‘s VP of business development. Our overall objective really is to maximize our use of the Facebook API in order to allow users who have added Facebook to Yoono to have the best possible experience and functionality.”

“It does look like some of this new functionality is available via the REST API which we use and we can run FQL queries (which we do),” says AlertThingy creator Clive Howard. “We will be revisiting this prior to the next version and if we can do then I’m sure it will make it into 3.x.” Version 3 of AlertThingy was released on Monday morning.
Apps that we pinged but have not yet responded: Flock, Feedalizr, Moodswing/blast, and Gwibber. We’ll update this post if we hear back.

Which apps are using the new Facebook APIs? | Webware – CNET.

You’ve come to terms with the reality of the current job market. There are jobs available; but, it will take focus, dedication, and a bit of savvy to land one. No problem.

You’re ready to take a no-excuses approach to your job hunt and you’ve diagnosed any underlying job search issues. You’ve spotted a few areas where you need to improve your job search skills. Working with a career professional isn’t an option for you right now. So, what other options are available?

Here are seven, no-cost resources to help you become a more savvy job hunter that has the skills to compete in the current job market:

1. LinkedIn.com – LinkedIn is a social network for business professionals. An updated LinkedIn profile is practically a must-have for every job hunter. However, LinkedIn isn’t just for job hunters. It’s an essential tool for anyone who understands the importance of networking as a career management tool. You can connect with current or former colleagues and alumni and request recommendations (a professional endorsement) from people you’ve worked with in the past. LinkedIn also offers a great opportunity to connect with people within organizations you are targeting during your job search.
2. O*NET Online – A full-access version of the occupational network database. This is an invaluable tool for researching industries and discovering occupations that you might not have previously considered, but closely match your skills.
3. JibberJobber.com – This career management tool works seamlessly with LinkedIn or any spreadsheets that you might already be using. This tool will enable you to keep track of all of your job search and networking contacts and any correspondence or follow-up.  Best of all, if you need to resume your job search in three years, the information you collected this go-round will still be there waiting for you.
4. VisualCV.com – This online tool truly allows you to bring your resume to life – complete with presentations, documents, video, and a photo, if you so desire. It is especially useful for creatives with large portfolios. However, it can be a great way for any job hunter to stand out. Rather than just reading about your accomplishments, an employer can view a presentation you gave, see certificates you’ve received, and go through your portfolio. Note: The VisualCV does not replace your traditional resume. Rather, it should be used in conjunction with it.
5. JobRadio.fm – Up late worrying about tomorrow’s interview or wondering whether you should have listed every job you’ve ever had on your resume? JobRadio.fm – available online 24/7 – will keep you company and keep you informed about the latest job search strategy news. Listen to career and job search-related podcasts anytime or download a show and listen to it on your computer or MP3-player at your convenience. JobRadio.fm features content from Secrets of the Job Hunt, Career Communique, Jobacle, Jobs in Pods, Total Picture Radio, and the SavvyJobseeker Podcast – hosted by yours truly.
6. TheJobLab.com – Get 24/7 access to article, video, and audio libraries; online forums; and a number of other tools and resources for job hunters. Need more support at a minimal price? A low-cost upgrade gives you access to live workshops and bi-weekly Q&A sessions.
7. Free community resources – CareerOneStop is a great online and local resource for job hunters. Many local employment networks, libraries, and churches are now offering job search training or hosting job search support groups or networking groups. Do your homework and find out what is available in your community.

The current job market certainly requires a savvier jobseeker. However, there are lots of resources and sources of support available to job hunters – regardless of budget. Take advantage of any available resource that will help you to improve your job search skills and your job search fortune.

Cleveland Job Search Examiner: Seven no-cost solutions for the savvy job hunter.

Cutting the Unemployment Line

Even in this economic chaos, some jobs remain recession resistant

There are three options government can pursue when the economy goes south. First, the Fed can cut interest rates, buy up assets, and extend credit, all of which the central bank has already done. Second, Congress can cut taxes on businesses and consumers in the hope they will spend more. The first effort—last year’s tax rebates—didn’t have the intended effect since consumers used much of the windfall to pay down debt or save. The substantial tax cuts that will be part of the Obama stimulus package would likely have a similarly muted effect. Businesses and consumers, facing a tough credit environment and needing to repair their balance sheets, will likely use proceeds from the tax cuts to tide themselves over. The third option is for the government to directly purchase goods and services, to substitute the demand that consumers and businesses aren’t providing.

The Washington remnant of the Republican Party—40 senators and 178 representatives—is all for Options 1 and 2, cheap money and tax cuts. But they’re having great difficulty with Option 3. They have forgotten Richard Nixon’s famous line that “we’re all Keynesians now.” To them, spending government funds to goose the economy is unacceptable, not just because of the possibility of poor execution —i.e., pork. No, many are rejecting it as a matter of principle. Even though several Republican governors are pleading for assistance in the form of federal spending, Washington Republicans are saying no.

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele laid down the party line on CNN: “Let’s get this notion out of our heads that the government create jobs. Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job.” Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina succinctly summed up his opposition: “We can’t keep spending and borrowing to get us out of a recession.” Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri concedes that some government spending—such as spending on highways—can create jobs but thinks that spending on mass transit or alternative-transit infrastructure isn’t stimulative.  Read More…

Will the Stimulus Plan Create Jobs? | Newsweek Voices – Daniel Gross | Newsweek.com.

The Obama administration wants to spend up to $100 billion on efforts to help homeowners, especially those facing foreclosure. But one of the leading ideas on how to do that — rewriting home loans to make mortgages affordable to struggling borrowers — is based on a startling lack of data about what works, and early evidence suggests that many lenders aren’t going to make substantial changes without serious strong-arming.

There are various ideas being bandied about, but the goal is common: to entice mortgages servicers, whether lenders themselves or third parties acting on behalf of investors, to rewrite the terms of loans so that people behind on payments might be able to keep their homes. (Read the four steps to ending the foreclosure crisis.)

One way being discussed to do that is for the government to share in the losses if a servicer modifies a mortgage and the homeowner again defaults. Another approach is to directly help pay for the cost of the modification. The servicer might cut monthly payments to 38% of a borrower’s income with the government chipping in to reduce the payment down to 31%, a presumably more sustainable level. Either tactic could be combined with a direct payment — $1,000 is a figure often mentioned — to incentivize servicers to do the heavy lifting of figuring out how much a homeowner can truly afford and recrafting his mortgage to match.

To a homeowner who has always made mortgage payments on time, perhaps by sacrificing spending elsewhere, the whole concept may seem grossly unfair. But society’s problems are unfortunately often our own. As the foreclosure rate has skyrocketed, and loan defaults have rippled from subprime mortgages into ones made to prime and near-prime borrowers, property values in many parts of the country have been pounded. There is an unavoidable correction going on in house prices, that much is true, but the swoon has caused additional

Reviving the Housing Market: Will Loan Modifications Work? – TIME.

Last year the champagne still flowed, but in 2009 angst will dominate the Berlin Film Festival. Cutbacks by studios, concerns about financing and a big-budget thriller about an evil bank — even the silver screen can’t ignore the world economic downturn.

Every movie gets the villains it deserves. Bandits attacking Indians? It’s a western. Hit men shooting police? A crime story. And when psychopaths try to achieve world domination, it’s either a terrorist drama or a film about Adolf Hitler. Those are the usual suspects.

Since the financial crisis, though, a range of unexpected villains has started parading across the screen. Werner Schulz, a politician from Germany’s Green Party, summed up the current mood a few days ago: “Now people are more afraid of their financial advisors than of al-Qaida.”

One German director seems to have anticipated this development. Tom Tykwer, known for his bank robbery fable “Run Lola Run,” will premiere his new thriller “The International” on Thursday, when it opens the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, or Berlinale. This time the bank itself is the villain.

The bank in the movie, in fact, is a criminal organization that commissions murder and homicide — a “bad bank” worse than anything from the current nightmares of the world’s finance ministers. The hero in “The International” is not a crusading protector of the public interest but British star Clive Owen (“Inside Man”).

The financial crisis will set the tone at this year’s Berlinale, the most important international film festival after Cannes. It will be the main topic of conversation at the parties and receptions, the festival’s speeches, press conferences and in the haggling over film rights and new productions.

Complete Article…

Worry Lines Through the Botox: Berlinale Reflects Leaner Times for Movie Business – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

Michigan cut welfare rolls 13 percent despite the fact that its October unemployment rate topped 9 percent. An office cubicle at the welfare agency in Detroit.

WASHINGTON — Despite soaring unemployment and the worst economic crisis in decades, 18 states cut their welfare rolls last year, and nationally the number of people receiving cash assistance remained at or near the lowest in more than 40 years.

The trends, based on an analysis of new state data collected by The New York Times, raise questions about how well a revamped welfare system with great state discretion is responding to growing hardships.

Michigan cut its welfare rolls 13 percent, though it was one of two states whose October unemployment rate topped 9 percent. Rhode Island, the other, had the nation’s largest welfare decline, 17 percent.

Of the 12 states where joblessness grew most rapidly, eight reduced or kept constant the number of people receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the main cash welfare program for families with children. Nationally, for the 12 months ending October 2008, the rolls inched up a fraction of 1 percent.

The deepening recession offers a fresh challenge to the program, which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996 amid bitter protest and became one of the most closely watched social experiments in modern memory.

The program, which mostly serves single mothers, ended a 60-year-old entitlement to cash aid, replacing it with time limits and work requirements, and giving states latitude to discourage people from joining the welfare rolls. While it was widely praised in the boom years that followed, skeptics warned it would fail the needy when times turned tough.

Supporters of the program say the flat caseloads may reflect a lag between the loss of a job and the decision to seek help. They also say the recession may have initially spared the low-skilled jobs that many poor people take.

But critics argue that years of pressure to cut the welfare rolls has left an obstacle-ridden program that chases off the poor, even when times are difficult.

Even some of the program’s staunchest defenders are alarmed.

“There is ample reason to be concerned here,” said Ron Haskins, a former Republican Congressional aide who helped write the 1996 law overhauling the welfare system. “The overall structure is not working the way it was designed to work. We would expect, just on the face it, that when a deep recession happens, people could go back on welfare.”

Read more…

Welfare Aid Not Growing as Economy Drops Off – NYTimes.com.

After a year of yawning losses at the company, employees lamented that times were getting lean. The giant bank, the recipient of two multibillion-dollar rescues from Washington, had paid out only about $4 billion in bonuses.

Only?

If you’ve never worked on Wall Street, it is hard to wrap your head around the idea that a company that lost nearly $19 billion in a single year, as Citigroup did in 2008, could still pay its employees billions in bonuses. It is probably even harder to believe that some of those employees grumble about it.

“I feel like I got a doorman’s tip, compared to what I got in previous years,” said a 30-something investment banking associate at Citigroup’s offices in Lower Manhattan.

That kind of glum talk is being heard all over Wall Street, where money is the measure and bonuses the ultimate yardstick. To bankers and traders, bonuses, which account for the bulk of their pay, justify those long days and sleepless nights spent crunching numbers or watching bond prices dance across computer screens.

But with everyone from President Obama on down chastising bankers for paying themselves billions in bonuses at a time taxpayer money is propping up the financial industry, once-unthinkable questions are starting to arise. Could bonuses, the stuff of Wall Street dreams, become a thing of the past? Could this decades-old incentive system, born of the private partnerships that once ruled Wall Street, be replaced? If so, by what?

Getting Theirs Cuts Both Ways on Wall Street – NYTimes.com.