The Amazon-in-New York lesson: Cities need to keep their arrogance in check

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.

Amazon said its “HQ2” would create 25,000 jobs directly, and as many as 15,000 indirectly. The average pay for an Amazon New York City employee was going to be over $100,000. Even the janitors were likely to be well paid; I’m reliably told there was a decent chance they’d be union jobs.