It's baffling to see such comments not giving any indication of grasping the rather basic mechanism behind the idea of restricting such race-to-the-bottom compe

It's baffling to see such comments not giving any indication of grasping the rather basic mechanism behind the idea of restricting such race-to-the-bottom competition. The number of jobs and investment are fixed. For the nation as a whole, these competitions only forgo tax revenue that instead goes to Amazon's shareholders. And you can't just make the argument from the winning city's perspective. The right approach is something like the 'Veil of Ignorance': imagine being randomly assign to live in some city/town, and find a policy that maximizes your expected utility. I also don't quite understand the heroic pose you strike for handing out subsidies. It's not like such self-impoverishment requires any skills on the part of the administration, except a willingness to sell out your citizen. Cooperating with other jurisdictions to form a cartel against such competitions would increase everyone's tax revenue, and still allow you to compete with factors that actually benefit your citizen, like good infrastructure or education.