…talks about “millionaires’ post-Microsoft pursuits;” including those of early-middle-aged tycoons who’ve vowed to give back to their communities.

I can think of a few other ways to use local private money to help the region–capitalistic, potentially profitable, ways even.

I’m talking about taking back key parts of the Northwest commercial identity that have been run into the ground by out-of-region consolidators.

Specifically, I call for the de-Cincinnatification of Northwest retail.

Kroger is ruining QFC and Fred Meyer. Kroger’s crosstown colleagues at Federated Department Stores have trashed The Store Formerly Known As The Bon Marche, and are preparing to do the same to Portland’s Meier & Frank.

Let’s get some locals with spare cash together to buy these chains back, to bring them home, to make them again responsive to local consumers and local communities instead of stock-market speculators.

If these tasks take more money than we can round up, we can always start smaller, by buying the Rainier and Olympia beer brands back from the Pabst/Miller joint venture that controls them now, contracting their production to underutilized local microbreweries, and making them ours again.