Secret Hours

A world of potential may lie tied up in graphene nanoribbons, particularly for electronics applications. But researchers have been hampered in their efforts to fully explore that potential because they had no reliable way of creating the large quantities of uniform nanoribbons needed to conduct extensive studies. Now a team at Stanford University under Hongjie Dai has developed a new method that will allow relatively precise production of mass quantities of the tiny ribbons by slicing open carbon nanotubes.

CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli, whose call for revolution in February helped jump-start the movement that birthed today's "Tea Party" tax protests across the country, isn't actually attending any of the events himself. "I haven't organized," he said on the network this morning. "I have to work to pay my taxes so I'm not going to be able to get away today." But, he added: "I'm pretty proud of this ... good, bad, or indifferent: That's a great thing. There's not a lot of countries that afford their people that type of right." Well, to be fair, the government didn't entirely give us the right.

The M1A1 Abrams tank is one of the newest additions to the Iraqi army’s arsenal. U.S. Army armor Soldiers and contracted civilians are assisting the 9th IA Division with getting their armored crewmen trained on the new equipment at Forward Operating Base Hammer.

Soldiers with Company D “Demons,” 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, facilitated the training, according to 1st Lt. Michael Pesano, a platoon leader with Co. D. “We’re here basically to help with mentoring the Iraqis, with maintenance and with understanding of how a tank platoon is supposed to run on a day-to-day basis,” he said.

While it is the contracted civilians’ job to teach the Iraqis how the Abrams works, it fell on Demon Company to teach them how an Abrams crew operates, Pesano explained.

“We start with the Iraqi leadership: the lieutenants; the captains … we try to get them to understand the American style of tanking, as opposed to the old Soviet style of tanking,” the native of Springfield, Va., said. “It’s not just one individual commanding everything, it’s a team effort. We’re trying to instill that in them. Everyone has to work together.”

Basic operations in an Abrams tank contain a few major differences from the Soviet T-72 battle tank that the Iraqis are used to, according to Sgt. 1st Class John Hise, from Tishomingo, Okla., master gunner, 3rd Bn., 16th Cav. Regt. “In a T-72, you have a three-man crew: a driver, a gunner, and a tank commander,” he said. “An Abrams has a four-man crew, the addition being a physical loader, while the T-72 has an automatic loader. It takes them a little while to get used to that.”

In addition to a four-man crew, a major hurdle for Iraqi tankers is abandoning previous concepts of how a tank crew operates.

“In the days of the old Iraqi army, if you were a driver, you could spend 20 years as a driver and never do anything else,” said Hise. “We’re teaching them how to be a tank crewman: you know every job in the tank and you can do every job if need be.”

At first, the Iraqis were resistant to these new ways of training and the Abrams itself, but they changed their way of thinking as the training progressed, Hise added.

“They thought the T-72 was a manly tank and the Abrams, not so much,” he quipped. “But once they got in it, started working with it and saw the accuracy of the Abrams, they loved it.”

Maintenance of the tanks used for training is a task that 2-8 Cav. Soldiers take on every day. They are required to move the tanks to and from the training site, provide any repairs needed and assist the Iraqis with their understanding of the maintenance process, Pesano said.

“The Iraqis do have a maintenance class and we’re working with them to show them how to actually do these tasks but this course is so condensed that they don’t have very much time to get into all the details and aspects of it,” he explained. “That’s why we’re out here every day so they can ask questions and we can provide those answers.”

So far, one class of Iraqi tankers has graduated the course, with another class underway. The first set of graduates are now going through the training again, this time learning to be instructors so they can eventually teach the class themselves without the aid of U.S. troops and contractors, Pesano said.

“Since they’re taking the M1A1 battle tank, it’s important that they take a new doctrine with it,” he said.

The M1A1 tank is a valuable asset in the Iraqi army’s battle against insurgency and in its security operations. With proper training and a little help from Demon 2-8, the IA will have troops that can effectively use the Abrams to the full extent of its capabilities, as well as instructors who can teach future Iraqi army tankers.

The meltdown of Merrill Lynch picked up pace today, as Bank of America lost its top M&A investment banker to a boutique investment bank.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Merrill Lynch's Alan Hartman is leaving Bank of America, which acquired Merrill, to go to Centerview Partners, a fifty person outfit in New York. 

"Mr. Hartman, known for his work with health-care companies, is currently head of mergers and acquisitions for the Americas at Bank of America. Two other senior Merrill Lynch health-care bankers, Richard Girling and Mark Robinson, are joining Mr. Hartman at Centerview," Dennis Berman writes.

Recently, Merrill Lynch has been plauged by high level defections. Many employees have left for boutiques or foreign banks, which haven't received TARP money and so aren't subject to salary caps. Morgan Stanley has also hired Merrill Lynch brokers, however, so Merrill and Bank of America can't blame all the defections on the salary caps.

Economist Linus Wilson writes in to tell us that the TARP payback is a win-win for for taxpayers and should make Goldman Sachs less likely to fail:

The Congressional Oversight Panel’s February 6, 2009, report page 1-10 argues that the present value of the U.S. government’s $10 billion investment in Goldman Sachs was worth $6.8 to $8.2 billion on the day the funds were passed out.  That was a $3.2 to $1.8 billion subsidy according to that study. Now taxpayers stand to get almost all of that subsidy back.

Joint work by Wendy Yan Wu and myself, “Common (Stock) Sense about Risk-Shifting and Bank Bailouts,” and solo work, “Debt Overhang and Bank Bailouts,” suggests that $1 of subsidy on a preferred stock recapitalization is equivalent in terms of incentives to $1 of new common stock issued. 

The Goldman Sachs seasoned equity offering is a win-win for U.S. Taxpayers: 

First, if GS pays back TARP, taxpayers get paid back in full and recover most of the subsidy that they offered Goldman.  (Yet, since market prices change every day, a new valuation would have to be done at the day the TARP funds are paid back to see how much of that subsidy would be recovered by GS returning its $10 billion TARP investment.)  

Second, taxpayers benefit by the improved incentives at Goldman Sachs.  $5 billion of new common stock will make it less likely that Goldman will shift losses onto taxpayers and creditors than a $3.2 to $1.8 billion TARP subsidy. 

Nevertheless, I had hoped that Goldman Sachs would have tried to raise $10 billion dollars in new common equity as a symbolic gesture, which would have been even better news for U.S. taxpayers, but possibly not GS shareholders.

Energized by a global summit meeting two weeks ago where world leaders called for a crackdown on abusive tax havens, Congress seems likely this year to debate significant elements of the federal income tax code as it affects corporations. But it’s not likely to be the debate those companies had been hoping for.

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