Nightmares of Home Loan - Who is responsible?

The global recession was succesful in checking the unstoppable and unbearable growth of many sectors of the economy. There are many people who blame the recession for the affect it had on them. I wonder how many of them realize that they were also part of the 'responsible group' for recession. Though the government is taking many steps to improve the situation people are skeptic to spend-for their fear of insecurity of their jobs. And no need to blame them as they are being intimidated by the number of job cuts around them. In a worse sutuation than this are people with liabilities who would be desperately praying for their pay and security of their job.

What are the liabilities that position them in such a worse condition? I would say only one - The Home Loan. This is the major liability for most who lost their job or even at the verge of it. It is a liability of huge amount per month and which extends for years-probably till you retire. The nightmares of Home Loan is because of its humongous nature. I wonder why do people go for such things without proper backup of assets. When you think about it you realize the sad truth that most of the employees are forced to take it.

Who is forcing them? I would say the Government. The government of India provides for tax benefits of Rs 1.5 lakh (150,000) per annum on the interest paid for home loan (section 24), and Rs 1 lakh (100,000) per annum on the principal amount paid for home loan (section 80C). But the tax benefit for all kinds of savings (ELSS, ULIP, Insurance, etc + the PF) cannot exceed Rs 1 lakh (100,000) under section 80C. The intention here is to provide incentive to the citizens to fulfil the basic need of having a house. But this is backfiring and leaving many people with the burden of carrying the overwhelming home loan for their entire valuable life.

Many employees consider home loan as a tax saving tool with less foresight of looking at it as a liability and burden. For many people employment is the only asset to backup the loan which makes them vulnerable to the recession kind of situations. Another sideeffect of this is the ever rising real estate prices. The prices are increasing due to unworthy competition which is not good for anybody - everyone is helping to dig a big hole where they will get burried once. There are very less people who try to own a home at the right time - after marriage with the spouce earning or after saving some money - and not get trapped in bad situtations.

Still how is the government responsible for it? It could have taken effective measures to control the real estate prices but that is all too unimaginable in a diverse country like India. More simple solution is to increase the amount an employee can save as investment - ELSS, ULIP, Fixed Deposit, or even introducing new and better schemes. Other possible soulutions are to increase the number of tax slabs (lilke 10%,15%,25%,etc), or increase the income range with in a tax slab (current slabs are - upto 1.5 lakh - 0%, 1.5 to 3 lakh - 10%, 3 to 5 lakh - 20%, >5 lakh - 30%).

Considering the increasing salaries of many private and public sector employees these steps, in the near future, would be inevitable. By introducing these measure the government would give the people the option to gain assets inplace of the liabilities option available now. And this can be done with out affecting the revenue that the government gets from the tax paid by the employees. Coming back to the present, young employees must be intelligent enough in chosing the right time to take big loans.

Annoyed with the grey background in MS word when copying image from MS Visio ?

Don't know about you, but I was actually annoyed with it!

When you try to copy an image from MS Visio to MS word a grey background appears in the word document. This could be around the border or could be with in the picture depending on how the image is structured. If you want to get rid of this you just need to do this:

In the word document, go to:
1. -> Tools.
2. -> Options.
3. -> View (could be the default tab open).
4. set Field shading to Never or When selected.
5. click ok and the problem is solved!

I tried a google search for this but there was only one immediate site which gave this information. So I wanted to share this with you and I hope this is helpful to you.

Why do we wish? Think before you do.

This is the season where we can see a lot of wishes being exchanged. Wishes for christmas, new year, sankranti, morning, evening and others. People even visit or call up, just to say - "Wish you happy new year". Why do people say this... this phrase! Probably they mean "I wish you have a happy new year ahead". Wait! what is the difference? Well.. you chant the two and you will find some difference. The first one comes from the mouth but the second one comes from a bit deeper (the heart?).

So what am I trying to say? The phrases like "wish you happy new year", "happy birthday", "good morning", etc.. have become so popular that people don't think what they mean by saying them. They just come from the mouth so naturally and instantly that we don't bother to think about them. And why should we - the person who receives the "wishes" is also like us. But if we do think, the next time we would either "not wish" or "wish them from the heart".

What do we mean if we say "Happy Birthday"? I guess we don't really mean "this day (birthday)" and only "this day" must be "Happier". People are so obsessed with this phrase that they are not willing to try human's wonderful creativity and imagination to wish in a better way. For e.g. we could have said some thing like "Bad day, oldman!" or even "I wish you a happy new year". There are not many people who wish like this, because of the instantaneous and universal nature of the phrase "happy birthday". To me, we are actually expressing and wishing less by the usage of these stupid phrases.

Coming back to our topic - "why do we wish?", why do we wish - it is afterall an another day. This Jan 1st also we cooked our food, we watched the TV, and we slept. There is no change (or "extra" happiness) in our routine (except for the holiday we got). But people kept calling us and say "happy new year". Does it really make any sense? The answer is "no" and "yes".

"No" for the obvious reason - it does not make any difference. We do not see many people of the earlier generation celebrating and wishing on such occasions, probably because of the pain and suffering they experienced in their lives. But the life style has changed so drastically that people cannot digest if somebody forgets to wish, cannot resist wishing and even feel guilty if they forget to wish. It is very important that we look at it with an open mind, the failure of which is probably the reason for many "ideas" to change to "mass practice" and finally "superstition".

"Yes" because it will keep you in touch with your friends, relatives and others. Wishing, greeting and expressing will help build relationships with others which at a macro level constitute the society we live in. According to a psychological study, the gossips that we share with others will keep us mentally healtheir and happier. Wishing to be "Happy" does keep us happy indirectly.

So, be concious and open minded and "donot wish". But if you want to (or have to) wish, try to "wish" in the way you wish by avoiding the unavoidable pharses.