peHub Second Read

***An investment analogy:
Warren Buffet’s portfolio is to the Met as a Buyout firm’s portfolio is to a porn shop. This according to Mr. Buffet.
The direct quote, via Bloomberg:
“You can sell it to Berkshire, and we’ll put it in the Metropolitan Museum; it’ll have a wing all by itself; it’ll be there forever,” he says at the February meeting. “Or you can sell it to some porn shop operator, and he’ll take the painting and he’ll make the boobs a little bigger and he’ll stick it up in the window, and some other guy will come along in a raincoat, and he’ll buy it.”

***The House voted to pass Charles Rangel’s tax fairness bill today, furthering the move to close the carried interest loophole. Next stop, the Senate (even though Bush has vowed to veto it)! SEIU sent out a celebratory press release but didn’t update their Web site. See Dan’s take on it.

***InBev got funding to purchase Anheuser Busch. A roundup of the situation’s coverage at Dealscape. So if InBev can get financing, why can’t an American private equity firm? Wouldn’t a domestic owner save the Busch family from the whole foreign outsourcing conundrum? And possibly paint whichever firm steps in as a patriotic preserver of Americana? I’m assuming InBev’s ability to get financing stems from its investment grade credit rating, like Verizon, for its purchase of Alltel. Inbev’s letter doesn’t break down the specific commitments of each bank, but here it is, via WSJ.

***Absolute Return directed me to this interesting piece on Why Female Academics Don’t Appear on Op-Ed Pages. In summary, Portfolio’s Felix Salmon argues it’s because more men overestimate the truth of their own beliefs than women.

Note:  In a previous version, I incorrectly identified Warren Buffet’s analogy as an anagram, as our commenter pointed out. Fixed!