Jerry Brown's investments belie monastic image

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

Throughout his political career, Jerry Brown has cultivated an almost monastic image, famously sleeping on a mattress on the floor during his first go-round as governor and flying for peanuts on Southwest during his current term.

But in recent years Brown has quietly built a small fortune in real estate and stock holdings, in part by going into business with prominent Oakland developers whom he once regulated as that city's mayor, a Bay Area News Group analysis of Brown's personal investments shows.

While Gov. Brown was busy over the last four years frugally balancing California's budget, the state's chief executive was actively building up his multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio. Just two years ago, he invested in an $11 million office building near Oakland International Airport in an area that is being considered for a massive "Coliseum City" redevelopment project that could include new baseball and football stadiums.

Jerry Brown: utility maximizer. Jerry Brown got "captured" by the urge to be a profit maximizing rent-seeker. Imagine that.