This anti-government waste person might actually go for this for the sole reason to get these companies out of the political donations business. (They tend to give money to all sorts of crazy, wasteful, ideas like light rail.)

Did I really say the above??

thanks
jk

On a similar note,

What about PDC getting $12 million to rennovate the old Meier and Frank building into another hotel?

I'm sorry - I didn't realize our homeless problems were all taken care of that we had an extra $12 million burning a hole on our pocket. That God the PDC is here to ensure we don't fail our obligations to the Portland Public.

The "Buffett" takeover of Pacific Power is not analogous to the Texas Pacific bid for PGE. Berkshire Hathaway is built on a "buy and hold" philosophy, not "grip it and strip it," like Texas Pacific. There is nothing to suggest that that philosophy will evaporate when Warren and/or Charlie dies. See www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

The very same Texas Pacific Group not more than 14 days ago purchased Neiman Marcus (and I've been reading about their purchases regularly in The Economist). I think, with hindsight, Texas Pacific is no different than Bershire Hathaway. Texas Pacific's problem was the manner in which they played dirty pool with the PDX old cronies network to get access to PGE. Mr. Buffet had the smarts to do a backroom deal and keep the details out of the papers.

Berkshire Hathaway is built on a "buy and hold" philosophy, not "grip it and strip it," like Texas Pacific.

So this is the dividing line? We'll let private companies own our utilities so long as they "behave"? But if they "misbehave," we'll have the city take over the affected companies forever after?

Has anyone checked into what the Enron creditors' plans would be for PGE if the company is spun off to them? Maybe they'd be as benign as Warren and his pals. All I'm hearing from City Hall is "Private investors can't be trusted." Period.

I was way against TPG, but as between Sten & Grampy on the one hand and the Enron creditors on the other, I'm inclined to go with the latter.

Jack, how can you treat this topic without addressing the phantom tax issue? Or the conflict between the public/ratepayer's interest and the shareholders' in the context of private ownership?

The "phantom tax issue" is over, at least for the foreseeable future. Enron is gone. For PGE, right now the question is whether it's to be owned by the Enron creditors or the city. There's no "phantom tax issue" vis a vis the creditors. When PGE is a stand-alone, publicly traded company, it won't be any other company's subsidiary, and the opportunity for the Enron tax scam won't be there.

Now, that's not to say there won't be in the future, but the point of my post was that the same potential is there with Buffett. And the same "conflict between the public/ratepayer's interest and the shareholders' in the context of private ownership" exists with Buffett. So if we're going to do PGE, why not PPL too?

My point about Berkshire Hathaway is that much of the animosity directed against TP in their bid for PGE was that they would leverage the purchase, strip the assets, and leave town in short order. That is not Berkshire Hathaway's standard modus operandi, and there is no particular indication that it is purely Buffett's personal gravitas that compels BH to "buy and hold," so speculation about what happens when Buffett dies is merely that--speculation. That was my narrow point--not that BH is a corporate "good guy," nor that private ownership is better or worse than public ownership.

And no, I don't own Berkshire stock, and yes, it's because I can't afford even one share.