F1 2007 Champion Raikkonen. Is he or is he not?

The end of an exciting season of Formula 1 Racing 2007. The year was filled with excitement, with a rookie (Lewis Hamilton) taking the F1 circuit by storm, tensions in the McLaren garage, Spy controversies, Spyker team being bought out, Ferrari having new drivers, etc.

 

The fight for the Drivers Championship came down to the last race, with Kimi Raikkonen eventually winning it with Ferrari.

 

Or has he won?

 

Latest news states that BMW and Williams teams had irregularities in the temperature of their fuel owing to which the drivers of these teams might be disqualified from the race.

(You read that right, just because the temperature of the fuel during and at the end of the race was beyond a certain range, the teams might be disqualified. Thats because the teams might have frozen the fuel, thus allowing more fuel to be stored in the car tanks.)

[Yes, F1 has VERY stringent rules]

 

Basically the Stewards (Race umpires/referees) let this pass, but McLaren is going to appeal against this.

 

Now if this decision of the Stewards is overturned, then Hamilton, would move up from finishing 7th in the race, to finishing 4th.

Owing to that he would have finished the season with 112 points, against Raikkonen's 110 points.

 

That means that he would have won the Driver's championship.

 

BUT at present its a wait and watch situation, since the decision of the Stewards is not usually overruled.

 

But then again, its one been one hell of a roller coaster ride season.

 

If I was in Raikkonen's place, (and I truly wish I was) I'd wouldn't put my celebrations onto the race track as yet.

 

Over and Out.

Stock Market

This is a forward that I received from a friend via email :)

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs. 10/-

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.
The man bought thousands at Rs. 10/- and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.

He further announced that he would now buy atRs. 20/- This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms.

The offer rate increased to Rs. 25/- and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs 50!
However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rs35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to him for Rs. 50/-

The villagers squeezed up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!!!

Welcome to the 'Stock' Market!!!!!

Bill Gates and Gujju-Bhai

Bill Gates organized an enormous session to recruit a new Chairman for Microsoft Europe.

5000 candidates assembled in a large room. One candidate is Kantibhai Shah.

Bill Gates:Thank you for coming. Those who do not know JAVA may leave.
2000 people leave the room.

Kantibhai says tohimself, 'I do not know JAVA but I have nothing to lose if I stay. I'll give it a try'

Bill Gates: Candidates who never had experience of managing more than 100 people may leave.
2000 people leave the room.

Kantibhai says to himself' I never managed anybody by myself but I have
nothing to lose if I stay. What can happen to me?'  So he stays.

Bill Gates: Candidates who do not have management diplomas may leave.
500 people leave the room.

Kantibhai says to himself, 'I left school at 15 but what have I got to lose?' So he stays in the room.

Lastly, Bill Gates asked the candidates who do not speak Serbo - Croat to leave.
498 people leave the room.

Kantibhai says to himself, ' I do not speak one word of Serbo - Croat but what do I have to lose?' So he stays and finds himself with one other candidate. Everyone else has gone.

Bill Gates joined them and said 'Apparently you are the only two candidates who speak Serbo - Croat, so I'd now like to hear you have a conversation together in that language.'

Calmly, Kantibhai turns to the other candidate and says `kem chho'

The other candidate answers 'ek dam majama'

Recovery agents bear the public's brunt

For the past few days, newspapers in Mumbai have been reporting about how loan recovery agents from various banks and loan agencies, have been beaten up by the public when they went to recover dues.

Apparently these agents have been harassing the public so much that one person even committed sucide as he was unable to repay his loans.

In fact, even the government is putting pressure on Banks and Financial institutions over the methods followed by them in recovering loans.

Quite ironic, that the lender is being held for asking the borrower to return his money.

Don't get me wrong, I am against these recovery agents terrorising, threatening and using force against a borrower, but then one shouldn't be borrowing if one can't re pay.

But on the other side of the coin, you see this ocean of banks falling over each other to give you a loan, and offering gifts if you take a loan. Many do get tempted.

The banks are doing their advertising pretty well.
For example, in the newspaper, you'll have a financial advisior writing a guest coloumn about the traps to look out for while taking loans, and also, why one should only take loans in dire circumstances and not to fulfil a whim or fancy.
Just next to this guest coloumn will be a colourful advert, announcing that anyone and everyone can get a loan at low interest rates, even if their monthly income is low.

Now its obvious that anyone would look at the advert with greater interest than reading the 5 para long financial advisor's coloumn.

Plus, no one reads the fine print on the loan forms while signing them.

Bottom line is with this issue out in the open in such a huge way now,
1) people are becoming aware of the methods adopted by banks to recover loans
2) banks are being brought to book for the methods used by them to recover loans
3) the government is being forced to take some action to prevent these incidents from repeating.

This hopefully will bring about better legislation in the loan industry and people will be more cautious before taking these easy loans.