Corp Taxes too Low? I think not

Great article from Bruce Bartlett at the NY Times Economix Blog which makes a strong case that the GOP is wrong in its conclusion that corporate taxes need to decrease. Here is a useful chart but follow the link below for more information.




http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/are-taxes-in-the-u-s-high-or-low/#more-113779

WSJ-Piracy in China

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303654804576347190248544826.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

Taibbi Ripping Goldman

Obama cutting excess regulation, disputing Milk=Oil logic

Interesting article from Bloomberg:The White House announced today that 30 U.S. agencies are seeking to repeal or modify regulations in an effort to reduce reporting requirements and save businesses and individuals billions of dollars in compliance costs.
Among the revisions the Obama administration is proposing is elimination of a requirement in some states for vapor recovery systems at gas stations and changes in labeling mandates for hazardous materials, according to a fact sheet prepared by the White House. .............

Already in place as a result of the review is an exemption for the dairy industry from Environmental Protection Agency rules that defined milk as an “oil” and subjected farmers to regulations designed to cover oil spills, Sunstein said, estimating that the change will save the milk and dairy industries $1.4 billion over 10 years in clean-up costs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-26/white-house-slashes-red-tape-tangling-car-fumes-to-spilled-milk.html

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter- $1 Trillion Price Tag

From WSJ:

"A new Pentagon forecast showing the total cost of owning and operating a fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters topping $1 trillion over more than 50 years has caused a case of sticker shock in Washington."

The article also provided some comparisons (in today's dollars) to other famous government programs.

• Apollo Moon Landings: $164 Billion over 10 years
• Reconstruction in Afghanistan: $62 Billion over 10 years
• Interstate Highway System Construction: $213 Billion

The total cost of those three programs is $439 Billion, less than one half the cost of this single airplane.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303654804576345590857818106.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

Ezra Klein- How our debt happened

It's very interesting to note how much of our debt can be attributed to the Bush Tax Cuts. I wonder if the Tea-Partiers would've pushed as hard for their extension last year if they had this chart. It would certainly test their commitment to reducing the deficit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/how-our-debt-happened/2011/05/19/AFOqyk9G_blog.html

WSJ-Public School Fees On The Rise

Are Republican's losing their grip?

Great article from Slate on the continued movement for the Republican party to the right and the problems that this is causing them. Some quotes:

• Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial. He's an intelligent man, a lawyer, a fiscal rather than a social conservative. But Christie is also someone who might want to run for president someday, or be selected as someone's running mate. For those purposes, he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising, pro-Tea Party, GOP primary voter in rural South Carolina might object? By this standard, simple acceptance of the theory of evolution becomes a risky stance. To lie or to duck? Christie chose the option of ducking while signaling his annoyance at being put in this ridiculous predicament.
• Like the White Queen in her youth, the contemporary Republican politician must be capable of believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Foremost among these is the claim that it is possible to balance the federal budget without raising taxes.
• Even after the release of Obama's birth certificate, however, nearly one-quarter of Republicans still refuse to believe that the president was born in the United States. Conspiracy thinking is flourishing on the right like no time since the McCarthy era. The GOP rank and file is in desperate need of a cold shower, a slap in the face, a wake-up call. But instead of telling the base to get a grip on reality, the party's leaders are chasing after the delusional mob. To get to the front of the line in 2012, Republican candidates must pretend to believe a lot of nonsense than isn't so. Or do they actually believe it?

http://www.slate.com/id/2295128/

WSJ breakdown of Republican Presidential Field

LinkedIn's IPO: Shades of the Tech Boom

LinkedIn had an unbelievably successful IPO yesterday, with one day returns of 109% yesterday. This was the biggest U.S. tech IPO since Google in 2004.

Difficulties in moving out of the West Bank

From the WSJ:

A Must Read for Climate Skeptics

Great article by Brian Merchant at Slate regarding the conversion of climate skeptics. Please read the article at the link below these quotes:

• Until a few months ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more classic climate skeptic than D.R. Tucker. A conservative author and radio talk show host, he didn't buy the notion that greenhouse-gas emissions were causing temperatures to rise. He was pretty sure global warming was a hoax perpetrated by Al Gore and a cadre of liberal, grant-hungry scientists. Then Tucker did what partisan pundits and climate skeptics rarely do: He changed his mind.
  "I was defeated by facts," Tucker announced on FrumForum, the popular conservative blog. In an April 18 post, "Confessions of a Climate Convert," Tucker told readers how he came to question the ideologies of the climate debate, examine the science, and conclude that global warming was, in fact, very real.
• This is alarming: Only 48 percent of Americans believe that global warming is at least in part "a result of human activities," according to a 2010 Gallup poll, down from 60 percent in 2007 and 2008.
• Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, attributes this decline to five factors: The economic collapse, a severe decrease in media coverage, weather events like "Snowmaggedon," the efforts of the "denial industry" (the network of industry-funded think tanks and political advocacy groups that push skeptic views), and the "ClimateGate" debacle.
• Tucker's conversion began when he read Morris Fiorina's Disconnect, which outlines the way partisan divisions take shape between Democrats and Republicans, and points out that environmentalism used to be one of conservatives' chief concerns. Tucker's curiosity was piqued.
• a friend convinced Tucker to take a look at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report—the authoritative synthesis of the most recent peer-reviewed climate science. "Initially I was a bit skeptical. But I kept on reading it, and there was just so much evidence, and it was so detailed, and it was so backed up, and it was so documented, that I was like, 'holy shit, this is for real.' "

The article goes on to highlight the struggles that Tucker and other converts have had in changing other skeptics minds regarding global warming. It is unfortunate how entrenched biases can be in our society, especially those that aren't based on facts.

http://www.slate.com/id/2293607/pagenum/all/#p2

Rajaratnam Found Guilty- Useful Timeline

From the WSJ



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703864204576317060246641834.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories#project%3Drajdeals_pg%26articleTabs%3Darticle

Tragedy of Sarah Palin

Great article from The Atlantic. Some highlights:

• "During a week spent traveling there recently, I learned that Palin occupies a place in the minds of most Alaskans roughly like that of an ex-spouse from a stormy marriage: she’s a distant bad memory, and questions about her seem vaguely unwelcome. Visitors to Juneau, the capital and a haven for cruise-ship tourism, are hard-pressed to find signs of the state’s most famous citizen—no “Mama Grizzly” memorabilia or T-shirts bearing her spunky slogans. Although the town was buzzing with politics because the legislature was in session, talk of Palin mainly revolved around a rumored Democratic poll showing her to be less popular in Alaska right now than Barack Obama. The only tangible evidence I saw was her official portrait in the capitol and a small sign in the window of a seedy-looking gift shop advertising “Sarah Palin toilet paper.” Alaska has moved on. "
• "As governor, Palin demonstrated many of the qualities we expect in our best leaders. She set aside private concerns for the greater good, forgoing a focus on social issues to confront the great problem plaguing Alaska, its corrupt oil-and-gas politics. She did this in a way that seems wildly out of character today—by cooperating with Democrats and moderate Republicans to raise taxes on Big Business. And she succeeded to a remarkable extent in settling, at least for a time, what had seemed insoluble problems, in the process putting Alaska on a trajectory to financial well-being. Since 2008, Sarah Palin has influenced her party, and the tenor of its politics, perhaps more than any other Republican, but in a way that is almost the antithesis of what she did in Alaska. Had she stayed true to her record, she might have pointed her party in a very different direction. "
• "She kept herself focused, too: though priding herself on her well-advertised social conservatism, she was prepared to set it aside when necessary. Rather than pick big fights about social issues, she declined to take up two abortion-restriction measures that she favored, and vetoed a bill banning benefits for same-sex partners of state workers. "
• ACES has raised a lot more money than almost anyone imagined. That’s largely because of high oil prices. But it also shows that the law is working. ConocoPhillips, BP, and ExxonMobil have reported record profits—so it’s fitting that, in a sense, Alaska has, too. It’s no exaggeration to say that ACES has made the state one of the fiscally strongest in the union. Flush with cash, Alaska produced large capital budgets that blunted the effects of the recession. Moody’s just upped the state’s bond rating to AAA for the first time. While other states reel under staggering deficits, budget cuts, and protests, Alaska has built up a $12 billion surplus, most of it attributable to Palin’s tax. Galvin estimates that it has raised $8 billion more than Murkowski’s tax would have. But given the corruption that plagued the PPT, a better benchmark might be the tax it supplanted—the one put on the books after the Exxon Valdez spill. By that measure, Palin’s major achievement has probably meant the difference between a $12 billion surplus and a deficit.
• After the election, Palin returned to being governor, but she didn’t last long. She says unwarranted ethics investigations are what prompted her to quit. Most Alaskans seem to think she left to get rich. But she also had lost her political base. Republicans had never liked her, Democrats felt betrayed, and everyone believed she was now fixated on the presidency. Today, only about 33 percent of Alaskans hold a favorable view of her. She’s often referred to as “Sarah, Inc.”—just the latest powerful entity seeking to exploit Alaska.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/the-tragedy-of-sarah-palin/8492/

The corruption of FIFA

Every sport in today's big money environment appears to be fighting corruption in some way/shape/or form. Fifa, on the other hand, may actually be embracing it. Case in point, some of the allegations made by former FA Chairman Lord Triesman regarding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids last December.

• The ex-FA chairman has accused four Fifa members of trying to bribe him, including Fifa vice-president Concacaf president Jack Warner, who denies any wrong doing, of allegedly requesting for £2.5 million to be channelled through him.
• Lord Triesman also alleges the president of the FA of Thailand, Worawi Makudi, asked for control over the TV rights of a friendly between England and Thailand in return for his vote.
• He has also claimed Paraguayan Fifa executive Nicolas Leoz asked him for a knighthood and alleged that Brazil's Ricardo Teixeira said: “Tell me what you can do for me when you come to see me.”
  

There is still more to be found out about this story. The fact of the matter is that Great Britain and the U.S. were both believed to be front runners for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups respectively and the countries lost out overwhelmingly to Russia and Qatar. There had been several cases of bribery revealed prior to the December decision, and it would surprise no one if either of these tournaments were bought rather than earned. FIFA holds itself above all government intervention and its board members effectively are lifetime appointments. This seems to be a fertile breeding ground for this type of foul play.

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2931/go-global/2011/05/10/2479962/former-fa-chairman-lord-triesman-accuses-four-fifa-members

Ezra Klein: The No-Brainer Awards

Great post from Ezra, follow the link:

The No-Brainer awards

By Ezra Klein

This column is usually about the Big Issues. Health-care reform. The deficit. The debt ceiling. The grand, Ragnarok-level clashes (yes I just saw ‘Thor’) between the two parties.
But not today. Today, I want to introduce the No-Brainer Awards: a roll call honoring some of the best legislative ideas you won’t see leading the evening news. These thoughtful bills and responsible reforms aren’t polarizing or sweeping, which you’d think would make it easier for them to pass. But for many of them, the absence of partisan passion means they never make it to the front of the congressional agenda. So let’s give them a push.

The taxpayer receipt: When I buy groceries, I get a receipt. When I buy a chair whose name I can’t pronounce from Ikea, I get a receipt. But once a year, I send a whole heap of money to the federal government and I get . . . nothing. But it would be trivial for Treasury to provide me with an itemized receipt showing how my money was spent. Then, for good or for bad, I’d know.
The White House created an online tool where you can enter your income and tax payments and see what your receipt would look like (make your own at www.whitehouse.gov/taxreceipt), but there are bipartisan bills in both the House and the Senate to go even further and have Treasury send all taxpayers the receipt they deserve.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-no-brainer-awards/2011/05/09/AFK41qgG_blog.html#pagebreak

American exceptionalism?

This is a great op-ed piece from Richard Cohen at the Washington Post. You should read the full article at the link below:
American exceptionalism has produced a dysfunctional education system — more than 14,000 school districts, lots of bad (but job-protected) teachers, oblivious parents and students who are too dumb to know they’re dumb. American eighth-graders score 66 points below their Japanese counterparts in math, yet almost 40 percent of American children think they’re good in math. That figure for Japan is 4 percent.

It turns out, however, that some of those most inclined to exalt American exceptionalism are simply using the imaginary past to defend their cultural tics — conventional marriage or school prayer or, for some odd reason, a furious antipathy to the notion that mankind has contributed (just a bit) to global warming. Their enemy is what Gingrich calls “the secular left” — people who not only approve of gay marriage but also apparently don’t fly charter as he does.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism/2011/05/09/AF2rm0bG_story.html

The Big Picture: Healthcare Myths

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/05/why-is-healthcare-absurdly-expensive-in-usa-part-2/

Are Americans Paying Enough Taxes?

HT: The Big Picture

From McClatchy writer Kevin Hall:

"Here's a dirty little secret that most Americans don't want to hear: We're under-taxed.
That may sound like heresy; nobody wants to pay more taxes. But by historical standards, what we pay in federal taxes — rich, poor and everyone in between — has gone down.
At a time when Washington is wrestling with how to end federal budget deficits and trim the national debt — huge questions that are expected to dominate the nation's politics through the 2012 elections — the fact that Americans are under-taxed compared with U.S. historic norms is central to the discussion. "

 

 

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/05/113759/this-fact-may-not-sit-well-americans.html#ixzz1LxYy13HH

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Economists

From Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture:

"Let’s put aside the fundamental error of classical economics — that Humans are rational, self-interested, profit maximizing creatures. They are clearly not; Humans are actually irrational social animals with flawed cognitive apparatus. Frequently emotional, occasionally self-destructive, often times erratic, humans only rarely exhibit the traits that economics ascribe to them. If the study of economics begins with such a shaky foundation, is it any wonder they get so much wrong?"

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/

Costs of Indian Ocean Pirates: $12 billion

Piracy continues to be a growing concern in the Indian Ocean, mostly due to Somali pirates. Here are some key figures from the articles referenced below.

• The total cost of piracy in the Indian Ocean in 2010 — almost all of it by Somali pirates — is estimated to be between $7 billion (Sh560 billion) and $12 billion (Sh960 billion), and could top $15 billion by 2015, according to analysts.
• A recent study reported that Somali pirates are earning up to $79,000 a year, 150 times the average annual income in Somalia.
• The gulfs of Aden and Oman are among the world’s major shipping lanes: About 21,000 ships, and 11 per cent of global crude oil traffic, cross the Gulf of Aden every year.
• Incidents of piracy have soared from 276 in 2005 to 445 in 2010. According to the International Maritime Bureau, there were 142 attacks between January and March 2011 – 97 off the coast of Somalia – up from 35 in the same period the previous year and an all-time high.
• Pirates managed to seize 18 vessels worldwide, capturing more than 340 hostages in attacks in which seven crew members died and 34 were injured. Over the past five years, Somali pirates’ ransom demands have increased a staggering thirty-six fold, from an average of $150,000 in 2005 to $5.4 million in 2010.
• Britain has agreed to fund a £6 million programme to support counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Total+cost+of+Somali+piracy+menace+hits++12bn/-/539546/1158496/-/3g2jinz/-/

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/UK+to+fund+prison+for+pirates+as+violence+rises/-/2558/1158254/-/gp0ein/-/

Rising Wages in China-WSJ

Excerpt: Wages are rising in China, heralding the possible end of an era of cheap goods.
For the past 30 years, customers would ask William Fung, the managing director of one of the world's biggest manufacturing-outsourcing companies, to make his products—whether T-shirts, jeans or dishes—cheaper. Thanks to China's seemingly limitless labor force, he usually could.
Now, the head of Li & Fung Ltd. says the times are changing. Wages for the tens of thousands of workers his Hong Kong-based firm indirectly employs are surging: He predicts overall, China's wages will increase 80% over the next five years. That means prices for Li & Fung's goods will have to rise, too.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703849204576302972415758878.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLTopStories

Quiz to find out where you fit on the political spectrum

Typology Group Profiles

•     Staunch Conservatives
•     Main Street Republicans
•     Libertarians
•     Disaffecteds
•    Post-Moderns
•     New Coalition Democrats
•     Hard-Pressed Democrats
•     Solid Liberals
•     Bystanders

http://people-press.org/typology/quiz/

Golf Industry Gives Back

The video below highlights one of several programs for wounded veterans that are supported by the major golf club manufacturers. These really are terrific programs and its worth taking a closer look below. Some highlights:

• Ping currently has a program of setting up wounded veterans where they receive golf lessons and a free set of custom fit golf clubs.
• Callaway has donated $5 million in golf equipment to 250 military bases through Phil Mickelson's involvement in the Birdies for the Brave program, says Tim Buckman, senior director of global communications.
• TaylorMade also has played a big role in the effort to bring golf to injured veterans in the San Diego area. The company donates equipment and instruction to the San Diego-based program Operation Game On! The program, organized by Tony Perez, the father of PGA Tour pro Pat Perez.
  

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/blogs/local-knowledge/2011/01/hero-fits.html

Difference in Crying between Men and Women-WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703922804576300903183512350.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_LeadStoryNA

Gun Trafficking from US to Mexico

I've touched upon this issue several times before in this blog but it still seems extremely troubling to me that gun laws are so lax in the US that the majority of Mexican drug cartel weapons are purchased in the US and transported to Mexico. Simply put, it is much easier for criminals to buy weapons here than anywhere else.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834804576301384065633222.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834804576301384065633222.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

Obama's secret meetings-Slate

Below in an excerpt of an article by Jon Dickerson at Slate. It details how a President must compartmentalize his day and juggle both the mundane and critical aspects of his job on a day-to-day basis. It really does provide some useful perspective.

A president criticized for playing golf or spending time in Brazil on the eve of the Libyan invasion would have been relentlessly skewered for engaging in banter with the press on the eve of a dangerous military operation. But it wasn't just Saturday night that the president had to keep his serious brain cordoned off from his less serious brain. During the final phase of the multiyear operation, Obama chaired the National Security Council on five occasions to discuss progress. A look at those five days tells the story of not just how quickly a president must switch between his public and private duties but also how silly some of the public calls for his attention must have seemed to him at the time.
March 14: The president attends Kenmore Middle School in Washington's Virginia suburbs and gives a speech about education policy. He meets with Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen of Denmark. In the late afternoon, he chairs the meeting on Bin Laden. Shortly thereafter, he attends a Democratic Party fundraising dinner. The news of the day is that the president and Republican leaders have agreed to a second stopgap measure to keep the government open and avoid a shutdown.
March 19: The makeshift command center Obama used in Brazil is thought to be simply the place where he discusses Libya planning on the eve of U.S. operations. But it turns out Obama has been occupied with more than one military operation. The day's activities also include a diplomatic arrival ceremony, a press conference, public remarks and a few receptions.
April 12: The consuming story in Washington is the president's coming budget speech. Liberals who had been angry that Obama had not been a public presence in the budget fight with Republicans over extending government operations for the rest of the year are skeptical that Obama will deliver a forceful rebuttal to the House budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan.
April 19: The president starts his day with an Easter Prayer Breakfast, then performs in a town hall with voters, followed by a meeting with various interested parties to discuss immigration. His official schedule ends with a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
April 28: The president announces his new national security team, meets with Hispanic leaders, and then meets with the president of Panama, with whom he delivers statements to the press.
Of all the secrets President Obama has had to carry, the details of the Bin Laden operation was probably one of the biggest. He may have had a special delight in bringing it to the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, where much of the audience lives to publish a president's secrets before he can reveal them. A year earlier, as Obama spoke at the same dinner, the Times Square bomb plot was being foiled. Obama was informed of this shortly after he left the stage. The public wouldn't know for a few hours. Unlike the dinner, such crises are not an annual event. For a president, though, they happen every day.
http://www.slate.com/id/2292754/

Increase of the Federal Debt Burden Over the Past 10 Years

HT: John Mauldin

THis is from a report by David Walker, former Comptroller General of the US

Bin Laden Compound

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704569404576299160987203434.html

Bloomberg on Immigration Reform

Please follow the link below to a very good article on Immigration Reform from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Some relevant talking points include:

• The idea is simple: Reform the way we attract and keep talented and hard-working people from abroad to better promote economic growth. In the global economy, the countries that attract the world's best, brightest and hardest-working will grow and succeed. Those that refuse them entry will not. America has long understood this. We would not have become a global superpower without opening our doors to immigrants—and we cannot long remain one without continuing that practice. Smart, self-motivated immigrants spur the innovations and create the jobs our economy needs to thrive. Between 1995 and 2005, for example, 25% of high-tech startups in the U.S. had at least one immigrant as a key founder. Those companies alone have created 450,000 jobs—with the vast majority of them going to Americans.
• Our global competitors understand how crucial immigrants are to economic growth. They roll out the red carpet for entrepreneurs; we have no entrepreneur visa. They heavily recruit our advanced-degree students; we educate them and send them home. They woo the engineers, scientists and other skilled professionals who invent new products, launch product lines, and develop the technology of tomorrow; we erect arbitrary, senseless and bureaucratic barriers to recruitment. And we do all this even as our unemployment rate hovers around 9%.
• Creating a visa for entrepreneurs who already have funding to start their businesses will lead directly and immediately to American jobs. Visa reforms to improve temporary and permanent pathways for companies to fill the current shortages of engineers, scientists and other specialists—whose annual visa caps are often exhausted within days of becoming available—will spur growth at existing U.S. companies.
  Providing visas to the brightest foreign graduates of our universities will allow our economy to reap the rewards of their work. At the same time, allowing immigrants who succeed in college, or serve in our military, the chance to pursue a career and build their lives here legally will strengthen the long-term health of the American economy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703387904576279293334248326.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Deficit breakdown from WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704436004576297812548439184.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

Bin Laden Killed, Questions regarding Pakistan

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan -- The death of Osama bin Laden in a fortress-like compound on the outskirts of a Pakistani city that is home to three army regiments and thousands of soldiers raises questions over whether Pakistani security forces knew the whereabouts of the world's most wanted man.

The al-Qaida chief was living in a house in Abbottabad that a U.S. administration official said was "custom built to hide someone of significance." The city around 60 miles from the capital Islamabad is a far cry from the remote mountain caves along the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal border where most intelligence assessments had put bin Laden in recent years.

Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied this. Ties between the United States and Pakistan have hit a low point in recent months over the future of Afghanistan, and any hint of possible Pakistani collusion with bin Laden could hit them hard even amid the jubilation of getting American's No. 1 enemy.

That bin Laden could be in Abbottabad unknown to authorities "is a bit amazing" says Hamid Gul, a former Pakistani intelligence chief fiercely critical of America's presence in the region. Aside from the military "there is the local police, the Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence, the ISI, they all had a presence there."

Residents said the compound was around one kilometer (half a mile) away from the Kakul Military Academy, an army run institution for top officers and one of several military installations in the bustling, hill-ringed town of around 400,000 people.

An American administration official said the compound was built in 2005 at the end of a narrow dirt road with "extraordinary" security measures. He said it had 12 to 18-feet walls topped with barbed wire with two security gates and no telephone or Internet service connected to it.

Pakistan's government and army are very sensitive to concerns that they are working under the orders of America and allowing U.S. forces to operate here. Some critics assailed Pakistan for allowing the operation, while at least one Islamist party was planning a protest against the killing of man idolized by militants inside Pakistan.

The Pakistani Taliban, an al-Qaida allied group behind scores of bombings in Pakistan and the failed bombing in New York's Times Square, vowed revenge.

"Let me make it very clear that we will avenge the martyrdom of Osama bin Laden, and we will do it by carrying out attacks in Pakistan and America," Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan told The Associated Press by phone. "We will teach them an exemplary lesson."

Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf, who is eyeing a political comeback, said the "killing was the success of all peace loving people of the world." But he also said the Americans should not have been allowed to operate independently in the country.

One Pakistani official said the choppers took off from a Pakistani air base, suggesting some cooperation in the raid. President Barack Obama said Pakistan had provided some information leading to the raid, did not thank the country in his statement on bin Laden's death.

Pakistan's intelligence agency and the CIA have cooperated in joint raids before against al-Qaida suspects in Pakistan on several occasions since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. But U.S. and Pakistani officials indicated that this mission was too important to let anyone know more than a few minutes in advance.

Pakistan's foreign office hailed the death as a breakthrough in the international campaign against militancy, and noted al-Qaida "had declared war on Pakistan" and killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and security officers.

It stressed that the operation to kill bin Laden was an American one, and did not mention any concerns that Pakistani officials may have been protecting bin Laden in some way. Domestically, the already weak government may yet face criticism by political opponents and Islamists for allowing U.S. forces to kill bin Laden on its soil, but there were no signs of a major backlash Monday.

Pakistani officials said a son of bin Laden and three other people were killed. Other unidentified males were taken by helicopter away from the scene, while four children and two woman were arrested and left in an ambulance, the official said.

A witness and a Pakistani official said bin Laden's guards opened fire from the roof of the compound in the small northwestern town of Abbottabad, and one of the choppers crashed. However U.S. officials said no Americans were hurt in the operation. The sound of at least two explosions rocked Abbottabad as the fighting raged.

It was not known how long bin Laden had been in Abbottabad, which is less than half a day's drive from the border region with Afghanistan. But Pakistani intelligence agencies are normally very sharp in sniffing out the presence of foreigners, especially in towns with a heavy military presence.

Locals said large Landcruisers and other expensive cars were seen driving into the compound, which is in a regular middle-class neighborhood of dirt covered, litter-strewn roads and small shops. Cabbage and other vegetables are planted in empty plots in the neighborhood.

Salman Riaz, a film actor, said that five months ago he and a crew tried to do some filming next to the house, but were told to stop by two men who came out.

"They told me that this is haram (forbidden in Islam)," he said.

One witness posted live updates throughout the night on his Twitter account.

Sohaib Athar, whose profile says he is an "IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops," apparently broke word of the event with "Helicopter hovering about Abbottabad at 1 a.m. (is a rare event) and later: "A huge window shaking bang in Abbottabad. I hope it is not the start of something nasty."

Abbottabad resident Mohammad Haroon Rasheed said the raid happened about 1:15 a.m. local time.

"I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing. Then firing suddenly stopped. Then more thundering, then a big blast," he said. "In the morning when we went out to see what happened, some helicopter wreckage was lying in an open field."

Qasim Khan, 18, who lives in a house just across the compound, said he saw two Pakistani men going in and coming out of the house often in the past several years. One of them was relatively a fat man with a beard, he said.

"I never saw anybody else with the two men but, some kids sometime would accompany them. I never saw any foreigner."

Relations between Pakistan's main intelligence agency and the CIA had been very strained in recent months. A Pakistani official has said that joint operations had been stopped as a result, and that the agency was demanding the Americans cut down on drone strikes in the border area.

In late January, a senior Indonesian al-Qaida operative, Umar Patek, was arrested at another location in Abbottabad.

News of his arrest only broke in late March. A Pakistani intelligence official said its officers were led to the house where Patek was staying after they arrested an al-Qaida facilitator, Tahir Shahzad, who worked at the post office there.

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http://seekingalpha.com/news-article/1006860-bin-laden-killed-in-fiery-raid-in-pakistan

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