Winners in the New World

The Winners of the new world will be the countries that are least dependent on fossil fuels.

Wouldn't it be nice

Wouldn’t it be nice if cell phone companies actually let us use the product online, to check out the interface and functions. Instead they just give us the screenshots and 360 Degree views.

Are we sitting on Financial Crisis like USA?

Financial crisis rocked the financial markets across the world and the world is still not able to recover from that. In India we saw very little impact of the same.

However, did we learn from the mistakes of the USA and Europe?

It seems we have not yet taken any learning from the crisis.
I say this because; still in India it is very easy to obtain credit with very little documentation. Loans like home loans are still lent out with loads of paperwork.

But, credit card debts and personal loans etc. are lent out on the basis of salary only.
The banks do not even check the total amount of loans on a single person. That makes it very easy for a person to be under a huge debt.

Salary is not a good guarantee in India, especially with lack of labor rules people are fired indiscriminately during recession; with no notice pay on the basis of lack of performance. In such a scenario and lack of any social security benefits, how can one pay back the massive amounts of debt?

Home loans in a way are secured because the house is an asset that can be sold. But this theory failed in US and European markets where the house values dipped during the crisis.

Clock is ticking and if not the banks, we as individuals should take good care when taking loans. It is an individual's responsibility. A commitment to sustainable development.

Met Deptt. Does not have official IDs

HSBC India

HSBC 'Customer Care' is great... talk time = 2 mins... time on hold = 28 mins... server down time everyday... work done = 0 ... thats HSBC for you!!!

Tax, Tax & More Tax

How much tax do we pay effectively in India?

We pay toll tax for roads - for which we have already paid as taxes on petrol + 1% cess for highways.

User development fee for using airports - for which we pay taxes through air tickets.

We pay income tax, VAT of 4 different types, Octroi, Excise, Customs, Property etc. The number of direct and indirect taxes in India are comparable to number of stars in the universe. Effectively we pay around 50% of our earning as tax for an appalling infrastructure and facilities.

The question is where does all this tax go?

We all know that it goes into the pockets of few GREEDY PIGS (so called politicians) pockets.

That is why our votes and getting the right people into the system matters so much.

It will be a slow process, but we need to set the wheels in motion.

WTF

What a start to new year....
Israel attacks palestine, satyam fraud, truckers & oil companies strike, ukraine russia gas issues. How is economy going to get started again?

Thought things will start picking up again slowly this year but got too many speedbreakers it seems.

Doing a background check on a company

During my job hunt and before accepting the new offer. I did a bit of background check on my prospective employers.

This is when I came across a couple of websites which offer a lot of help. Also, the companies section on www.linkedin.com is of great help with its statistics and all.

Here are the links to two web sites I found really helpful.

www.talentquity.in
www.workexp.com