Understanding the sub-prime mortgage crisis in laymen terms

Understanding the sub-prime mortgage crisis in laymen terms

There are different kind of people who want mortgage in US. Those who are good people( who have the ability to pay back) are called prime borrowers. Similarly, those would are not good( those who may not be able to pay back) are called sub-prime. Now there is a guy called mortgage broker. You can assume someone from credit card industry - a credit card agent who is asking you to take a card- someone like that who is asking you to take a house on mortgage. Now, this mortgage broker knows the capacity of different people. He is issuing mortgage at small rates( 4-5%) to prime guys and on higher rate( 11-12%) to bad guys( sub-prime guys) He is doing this because he knows that they ll not be able to pay back, so he tells the bank that take higher interest from them and since they ll not pay back, we will do foreclosure of property and we( bank+broker) will get the house back and we ll make money also in this process. So, what happens is that due to his greed, mortgage broker gives huge loans to bad guys. Now there are so many houses which have been taken up by bad guys. mortgage-broker is happy due to his commisions and bank is also happy that it has put so many houses on mortgage.

So far, the story is good ! Now there is a twist in the story..

Now, here is what goes wrong. One by one, all bad guys start declaring bankruptcy. They are not able to pay back( since they never had the capacity to pay back) and so there are many foreclosures. So now, what we have is more number of houses chasing less num of takers !
By looking at this scenario, all the good guys say that why should we pay higher installments when the houses are so cheap and so they also start defaulting. Due to this, what happens is that banks are left with houses which no one wants to purchase !! And so the banks have no cash. only houses - which have depreciated a lot ! So banks become bankrupt and those who are not bankrupt, they need support from govt ! So the entire financial system has collapsed. And since the value of houses has become too less, the cost price has decreased tremendously- which means that growth is -ve OR there is recession in the economy.

All this, due to the greed of mortgage brokers and the bank officials who filled their pockets-without doing any chcks on people who will default !!!

PS: Dedicated to my friend, 'Ankit Sharma' who asked me to write a simple article on this topic. I hope I am able to give an overview of this financial mayhem in simple language

LifeMojo- Giving new dimensions to weight loss and healthy living

LifeMojo- Giving new dimensions to weight loss and healthy living

I was keeping an eye on my weight for sometime since Mar 2009. I realised that i was a bit overweight. My weight was around 70 kg in aug. It was high time to do something. I was fed up of comments from my friends and family that i looked fat now compared to an year ago.It was 14th aug 2009 when i decided that i need to do something. I recalled that I was already using free service of LifeMojo( http://www.lifemojo.com/). They provide a good interface using which i could analyse my BMI, fat percentage etc. Another good thing was that i could see how much calories i will consume - that too in indian context. Example 1 katori dal= 200 cal etc.

I had a talk with Himanshu( founder, director LifeMojo) how LifeMojo started. He told me that his CEO ( Namit Nangia) was overweight and Namit lost around 25 kgs in just 30 days by eating only salads. But he regained the weight pretty quickly. Namit realized that since he was not following a proper diet, he couldnt lose weight as he wanted to. And as they say, in every problem lies an opportunity. And that's how LifeMojo was born. Namit not only helped himself lose weight in a proper way, but also made something ( LifeMojo) that can help everyone keep tabs on his/her weight !!!

Lifemojo's website gives a lot of information about managing weight and taking proper diet, but what i was missing was i dint know how much to eat and how much excercise i should do and how to plan my diet. Thanks to LifeMojo for their personal diet consultant service - which i joined on 18 Aug 2009. It's been a month now and i have lost 1.5 inch on my waist and 1.5 kgs in weight. Though the weigt loss is not much, but still i feel that in next 1 month, i ll be able to reduce around 3 kgs compared to my weight in June-Jul 2009.

The diet consultancy service comes at an affordable price and that too their follow up is v good. During one month period, i was adviced by 2 nutritionists- Deepthi and Vidya. Deepthi used to tell me to make sure that i eat more salad, have curd sometimes during my lunch, and do jogging instead of walking everyday atleast for 20 minutes.

On the other hand, Vidya helped me by giving my links to videos which helped me to learn how to do some specific excercises like tummy trimming excercise etc. According to Vidya, you can lose weight without feeling hungry. The idea is to eat 5-6 times a day, that too small meals each time. She also insists that if I get bored of salads, i can take fruits as an alternative.

Few good things that i have felt by taking this service are that LifeMojo will send you an email each day, specifying what you should be eating that day. For e.g. in morning, in mid-morning, during lunch, in evening and during night- so your meal is planned for whole day. You need to be motivated to do what they suggest and be honest with yourself in not eating anything extra. Deepthi did gave me freedom that on sunday, i can eat and plan my diet myself :)

All in all my experience with LifeMojo has been really good. Their team was highly professional and their follow up - twice a week was perfect till last day ! They also have a google sms channel which you can subscribe to keep getting updates on your mobile.

So this is my post about how lifemojo's diet consultancy works :) and also a testimonial for LifeMojo's service.

So guys, what are you waiting for ? If you want to lose weight, and that too without feeling hungry, join http://www.lifemojo.com/ or contact the guys at lifemojo. They ll be happy to help you :)

I guess, been a long post now ! I remember it's time for my next meal. Till next time, have a healthy living and fruit-FULL eating.

Why you should join Art Of Living Course ?

Hello Bloggers !


Its been quite a few days that I havent blogged ! Well, I was busy pursuing the Art Of Living Course ( World famous course for Spiritual Awakeing and Medidation led by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) here in Mumbai, India.

This course is practised by over 20 million people around more than 132 countries worldwide.

As the title of this post suggests- "Why you should join Art of living course?" - I will talk about my experience and other people experience who completed
this course in my batch.


The course I am talking about is Art Of Living - Part 1 Course. I had been thinking for a long time to join a course which may give me more control over my
own life. So in this quest, I landed up with this course. The course started on 14 Apr 2008 and ended on 20 Apr 2008. This one week has been a kind of self
dicovery for me and many things which I didnt knew about myself- I came to know due to this course.

On the first day, we were told that for one week, we are not supposed to touch Tea, Coffee, Alcohol, Cigarrettes. Now I am the kind of person who takes almost 5-6 Tea Cups in a day. And I thought this is just ridiculous, but now its been over a week and I havent even taken half a cup of Tea. This is just one example of my self control which I was not aware of before attending this course.


On the first day, it seemed tiresome and questionable - will we be able to take out 3 hrs per day for continuous 6 days? Well, I feel this course of 22-23 hrs ( spanned over 6 days) has been a great investment by me for me !!


Coming to what the teachers teach you ? Apart for various Asanas, Pranayam, Sudarshan Kriya, and Fun filled activities, the teachers gave us some great knowledge points and they kept repeating those for all 6 days.



Here are few of the knowledge points we gained.

1. Accept People and Situations as they are.


2. Give your 100% in whatever you do.


3. Dont be a football of other people opinion. ( Meaning- Listen to everyone, but take your own decision)


4. Dont look for intention behind other people's mistakes.


5. Opposite values are complimentary ( Meaning- If good times never last, so will be the bad times which will end one day)
These are just a few points that we would always keep in our mind.

Sunday, 20 Apr 2008 was a day of celebration for all of us. We had successfully completed our course. Each participant brought delicious food from home and we had a great breakfast together sharing food with each other. Imagine how much variety we had, as we were 42 participants and everyone bought something or other from their home.

As a Guru Dakshina( Teacher's Gift), the Teachers asked us to practice the exercises daily for 40 days. So today is my 3rd day after the course. And its a long journey. Lets see how it goes...

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. I will surely reply :)

If you loved reading this post, then do attend their course, and hey, pls subscribe to my blog.

For more information about Art of living: please visit : http://www.artofliving.org/in-en/overview