I’m not an expert in these matters but I think I know enough to say that religion and politics don’t mix well in Iran. Cooperation between the two is an illusion, an illusion the people of that country realize is getting them no where fast. Iran was on its way to becoming a democracy (sort of) during the Shah’s US backed reign. Of course the Shah-Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi-had his problems with the religious right because of his White Revolution (visit White Revolution in Wikipedia-very interesting) that, among other things, extended suffrage to women, modernized the nation and recognized the sovereignty of Israel, a no-no for any Muslim nation.Modernization in Iran was seen by Shi’a clergy as secularization and they began withdrawing support for the Shah. In 1979 a revolution occurred that brought to power the Ayatollah Khomeini and his rule by the Supreme Jurist. Many Iranian citizens were opposed to the return of theocracy but knew better than to complain. Religious zealots remember, have ways of bringing the wrath of God to bear when needed to bring about unquestioned compliance, or so those zealots say. I became acquainted with an Iranian family that was able to escape the Ayatollah’s Supreme Jurist rule in 1982. A well-to-do family, the result of education and hard work, eventually made their way to the US where we met. The patriarch and his wife were in their seventies, both were ill, and they were broke. The Supreme Jurist wouldn’t allow them to leave Iran to seek medical assistance with any thing but the cloths on their backs. The familie’s home, jobs, and retirement fund were lost, never to be retrieved. The good news is that Americans-many were Iranian themselves-helped this family get what they needed and the bad news, of course, is they could never return to their beloved Iran.A product of the 70′s revolution in Iran was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now into his second term as Iran’s blowhard president. Strange indeed how Ahmadinejad began his ascent because of a cleric’s government take over in 1979, a puppet groomed by theocracy to lead a country back into the dark ages and now theocracy and Ahmadinejad are both suffering a significant loss of respect and power.Jon Meacham, in a Newsweek editorial, wrote; “In an imperfect world there will never be a complete end to theocracy any more than there will be a complete end to tyranny. Power will ebb and flow, regimes come and go. But in the main, history’s path leads to more liberty, not less.”Riots are raging throughout the Middle-East and as many know already Ahmadinejad is on his way out eventually. Rule by the Supreme Jurist is sure to be marginalized as well and the result, we hope, will be more liberty, not less. However, the not-less part is contingent upon reining in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps the most powerful and secretive organization in the region, their goal; eradication of all non-fundamental Islamic believers. There is much to be done to bring about liberty in those Muslim states and I am afraid it will get worse before it gets better. And in the meantime the Iranian Islamic radicals near their quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
How A Business Loan Helps Business People
Overview:
Becoming a self-employed businessman is a great reputation in the society but the problems faced by the entrepreneurs from the day one of their business is enormous. It is a great challenge for a person to overcome all obstacles to become a successful businessman. The numerous problem faced by all is finance. Even great entrepreneurs of various industries have struggled a lot of financial crisis for setting up their business and to run their daily business operations. Thus finance plays a major role in the life of business people. Great ideas require the necessary financial support to bloom into a successful business.Introduction:
There are various sources for business people to raise capital for their business. The most trusted source is from banks. There are various reasons why people choose banks as the best source for raising capital for their business. Banks provide a lower cost of funds in the form of Business Loans. There are various types of business loans at differential interest rates to facilitate business people to solve their financial crises.Types of Business Loans:
Businesses are of different types and need finance at different stages of their business operations. The need also being different, banks help them in providing different types of business loans helping various small and medium enterprises to raise capital.New Project Loan – Banks are interested in funding for new businesses and also for new projects of existing business. There are various criteria for getting new project loan and differs from bank to bank. Project loans are approved against the collateral of the person like residential property, commercial property or empty land.Top-up on Existing Loans – These loans are issued for expansion, replacement, diversification of an existing business. These loans are approved for short term or long term basis to buy goods, machinery or any fixed assets for the company.Working Capital Loans -These loans are provided for the business to solve sudden financial crises and repaid within short durations. Banks are more interested in providing working capital loans against their inventories, stocks or receivable bills of the company.Secured Business Loan – Business loans in which companies raise their capital against any security for the bank. It may include plot, residential or commercial places, gold, shares, bills, insurance as collateral to get funds for their business. The interest rate is preferably less.Unsecured Business Loan – Every businessman cannot afford to pledge a security in getting the business loan, so bankers help them with loans without any security based on bank transactions and income tax returns. These loans are charged with more interest rates when compared to secured business loans.Requirements of the Banks:
There are various steps and procedures followed by banks to provide funds. The procedure and documents to be submitted to the banks as followsIdentity and address proof of the company – Address proof and identity proof of partnership or proprietor business.Statutory legal registration of the company – Whether the company is legally registered under government norms and have followed all procedures legally in setting business.Financial statement of the company – Every bank is interested in seeing the recent 1-year business transaction of the company.Income tax returns – ITR helps the bankers to check the business performance, efficiency level, assets and liabilities of the company and also tax that company pays from their current earnings. This also plays a major role in deciding the loan amount for the business people.Financial Security – It includes the fixed and movable assets of the company which helps the banker to consider providing business loans based on the asset value along with the business transactions. This also safeguards banks from the failure of businessmen that fail to repay the loan amount.Previous Loan track – This is a very important factor considered by banks which will help them evaluate the financial condition of the business and also to check on past repayments on loans.Litigation – It will help banks assess the character of businessmen before providing a business loan.Takeaway:
Though business loans are found to be a great source for raising capital, businessmen undergo challenge in getting timely funds from the banks. In order to help them in availing timely loans, even NBFC is also now prepared to help them with funds at various stages of their business. Banks & NBFC have also made the lending process easy, with all verification done in shorter time-span, doorstep assistance in collecting documents etc. Businesses with good cash flows & credit score can avail timely funds with much ease.
Benefits of Custom Software Development
Professional software products are an important part of the working process for most companies in virtually every industry. Every company needs management and accounting software, and some sort of software solution for online presence. Larger companies implement customer service systems, human resources management software, sophisticated e-commerce software or web portals with extended functionalities corresponding their field of industry. All these systems are mostly developed by other companies, so-called software vendors, implemented and supported by the vendor or by the internal IT team.There are two main approaches to acquiring software systems for enterprise use. The easiest way for a non-IT company to automate its business processes is to purchase a package of off-the-shelf software and invite software engineers from the vendor company to deploy it. This approach works well with basic online shopping solutions, hotel reservation software or open source project management systems. It is convenient for small and medium enterprises with traditional business models, though larger companies can integrate ready made solutions into their system by customizing some of their functionality, if possible. Nevertheless, standard inexpensive software solutions are not reliable enough when it comes to banking software, healthcare or mobile programming.Ready-made software often fails to meet expectations of large businesses and innovation-oriented fast-developing companies. Their main disadvantage is lack of scalability. Of-the-shelf software is a finished product with limited possibilities for enhancement and upgrade. It may have issues with software integration, or it may be compatible only with software systems of the same software vendor. It cannot evolve along with the company, and sooner or later must be replaced by another software solution, more capable and more expensive. Custom software development can generally lead to the same expenses in the long-term perspective as purchasing new products, as it can be adjusted to emerging challenges and business needs.Custom software systems are always tailored to exact business requirements of the customer and adjusted to his unique business model. They are scalable and normally supported by long-term maintenance agreements, and help comes immediately if the upgrade is needed. Of course, the customer must define his key business objectives as clearly as it is possible from the very beginning, although it is allowed and, in some models of software development, even desired to give feedback to developers, so they can make corrections to the program during the development process. The aim is to ensure the right business logic behind all elements of implemented software and make it work under the real-life conditions.A compromising decision can be made if the company’s funds are limited. Some parts of the software company can be purchased as ready made solutions, and the key systems can be developed by request and put together by software integration. For example, a typical CRM solution and a standard database can be integrated with a custom online shopping portal, some bespoke business analysis software and even with an enterprise mobile application that can provide the complete business data from all those systems. Seamless integration is a highly professional kind of service that requires deep expertise in several fields, but it will be cheaper than developing the whole system from scratch.Custom software development can lead to noticeable expenses. But if the customer owns the resulting product, he can sell it to other companies. There are a lot of options like partner programs with other companies working in the same industry or “white label” distribution. Technology companies can develop the solutions they need for work by their own, but in many cases even they can do electronic document management or buy enterprise software products because of the high level in specialization that is characteristic for the IT industry.