The Path Amazon Rejected
I don&#x27;t understand the outrage towards Amazon.<p>1. No one forced any of these states&#x2F;cities to join this bidding contest. They willingly participated. &quot;How dare Amazon put cities against one another in a bidding war?!&quot; Yeah, I put five dealers against one another in a bidding war to get my business the last time I shopped for a car. Amazon can do the same thing.<p>2. &quot;Jeff Bezos doesn&#x27;t need our tax breaks!&quot; I bet he doesn&#x27;t. I don&#x27;t think Jeff Bezos personally helped elect all the leaders who offered all these tax breaks. At the end of the day, Amazon will create jobs. Will it gentrify these cities? Yes, absolutely. So would Google, Apple, or Facebook moving into a new area. &quot;But those other companies didn&#x27;t ask for tax breaks.&quot; They literally hold hundreds of billions in wealth overseas. I&#x27;m not arguing in favor of tax breaks for Amazon. I am saying, however, Amazon didn&#x27;t stage a coup against these mayors and governors and threaten to hurt them if Amazon didn&#x27;t get tax breaks. NYC officials (at least some) openly invited Amazon. Good on Amazon for walking out. Private companies don&#x27;t owe you anything.<p>The system is broken. Neither party has done anything to fix it. You have a company taking advantage of the perfectly legal rules that the system set up. OH GAWD better grab pitchforks. Yet, all the same lying Congressional leaders get re-elected election after re-election.<p>This de Blasio character openly invited Amazon. Now that they&#x27;ve backed out, he&#x27;s angry that Amazon had cities bid against each other and that it was so wrong? Are you kidding me? de Blasio is a prime example of what&#x27;s wrong with American politics.