Obscura

Basel II

Basel II is the second of the Basel Accords, which are recommendations on banking laws and regulations issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The purpose of Basel II, which was initially published in June 2004, is to create an international standard that banking regulators can use when creating regulations about how much capital banks need to put aside to guard against the types of financial and operational risks banks face. Advocates of Basel II believe that such an international standard can help protect the international financial system from the types of problems that might arise should a major bank or a series of banks collapse. In practice, Basel II attempts to accomplish this by setting up rigorous risk and capital management requirements designed to ensure that a bank holds capital reserves appropriate to the risk the bank exposes itself to through its lending and investment practices. Generally speaking, these rules mean that the greater risk to which the bank is exposed, the greater the amount of capital the bank needs to hold to safeguard its solvency and overall economic stability.

posted by Cobb @ 10:05 AM

Kordylewski clouds

Kordylewski clouds are large concentrations of dust that may exist at the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points of the Earth-Moon system. They were first reported by Polish astronomer Kazimierz Kordylewski in the 1960s, but there is still controversy as to whether they actually exist, due to their extreme faintness. It is thought by some that they could be a transient phenomenon as the L4 and L5 points are unstable, due to the perturbations of the inner planets.

posted by Cobb @ 10:16 PM