Like Wisconsin is a big winner paying $350K/job of taxpayer money to Foxconn to get them to build a factory (https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-fox...onsin-the-costs-to-taxpayers-go-up-1530091800) It's like cities lining up with knee pads to get a professional sports team by spending a billion or two on a stadium. There's a thing called the winner's curse in auction theory that definitely applies to these situations.And here's a laughable story from CNN: "How Amazon blew its chance in New York"
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/tech/amazon-nyc-hq2-fail/index.html
CNN seems confused as to who the loser is here.
It's not nearly as clear as it was said in the article. There are good things and bad things about what happened. On one hand, the numbers did not add up and, more importantly, it created a massive moral hazard issue. Other large tech companies (e.g. Google) have moved to the NYC without the same incentive package. If Amazon had twisted the arm of the city/state governments, every other firm will (and should!) try to do the same. Maybe it's better for the city to forego this one chance not to be blackmailed in the future. On the other hand, most of the noise that eventually drove them away was by the anti-gentrification and union people (who I, rather honestly, dislike a lot).Good article. It clearly spells out the numbers.