Joe Nocera, Columnist

The Amazon-in-New York Lesson for Cities: Don’t Be Arrogant

Anti-corporate forces are gaining strength, and so supportive politicians need to be ready to fight back.

February 15, 2019 at 5:35 PM UTC

Joe Nocera is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. He is the host and writer of the Bloomberg-Wondery podcast "The Shrink Next Door."

Lots of frowns.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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The thing I don’t understand, with all the finger-pointing that’s gone on since the announcement Thursday that Amazon.com Inc. was abandoning its plans to set up shop in New York City, is why so many of the fingers have been pointed at the least culpable party — i.e. Amazon itself.

Yes, the $3 billion in tax incentives the state and city dangled to lure Amazon to Queens was absurdly rich — and probably unjustified. But Amazon didn’t hold a gun to anyone’s head. There were 237 other cities offering their own unjustified tax breaks in the hope of landing the company. Indeed, compared to the insane deal Wisconsin gave Foxconn Technology Group, Amazon came cheap.