> Taxes incentives are incredibly common

Yes, because our society is corrupt by design.

> This isn't some check to Bezos. This is a rebate off their tax bill. These are taxes that you will not get unless the business moves to New York.

At which point he gets to earn an extra 3 billion that should be going to the state.

> Finally, it's not a backroom deal. Part of Amazon's competition was for each city to sign an NDA in the process so cities can't see the bids of other cities. This would have created a bidding war that, surprisingly, Amazon didn't want.

That's a backroom deal. Giving it a (flimsy) reason for being a backroom deal doesn't change the way it was done.

> Finally, it's not a backroom deal. Part of Amazon's competition was for each city to sign an NDA in the process so cities can't see the bids of other cities.

Who benefits from this information asymmetry?

It meant that there wasn't an escalating bidding war between cities. So in this case, the taxpayer.

That's not necesarily true. The NDA means that Amazon has more information than the cities as was pointed out, so the cities are absolutely at a disadvantage. There's really no circumstance where information asymmetry is a positive thing, since the party with more information could always potentially exploit it. At best, you are no worse off than under information symmetry.

The NDA would have easily allowed Amazon to give the impression that other cities are offering more than they actually are willing to offer. This could have driven up bidding even more than if it were in the open.

You also have to think about incentives here. Why would Amazon want an NDA if it wasn't for their benefit? Are they just trying to avoid bidding wars out of the goodness of their heard?

>The NDA would have easily allowed Amazon to give the impression that other cities are offering more than they actually are willing to offer. This could have driven up bidding even more than if it were in the open.

Have you ever actually participated in an RFP? Its not a two way conversation. Basically (A) gives a list of requirements and then (B) and (C) submit their "bids" to (A). (A) reviews the bids and picks one.

And yes the NDA does benefit Amazon, just like any business benefits from RFP. But non-blind bidding would benefit them a lot more if their desire was to maximize incentives offered.

Blind Example: (A) sends out a RFP for a service. (B) Bids to do the service for $5,000. (C) Bids to do the service for $6,000. Neither (B) or (C) know each others bids so they bid the lowest they can and still turn a profit.

Non-Blind Example: (A) sends out a RFP for a service. (B) Bids to do the service for $5,000. (C) Bids to do the service for $4,000 since they can see what (B) bid. (B) then bids $3,000. Both (B) and (C) are in a worse position than if they couldn't see each others bids.

Having more information isn't always helpful. Looks at what happened when regulation made CEO compensation in publicly traded companies public knowledge. CEO compensation rose exponentially.

> The NDA would have easily allowed Amazon to give the impression that other cities are offering more than they actually are willing to offer.

That's a good point.

My impression was that Amazon wanted to avoid a bidding war because of bad press.

$500M is literally a check to Bezos.

And it is a backroom deal in that there was no competitive process to redevelop LIC, which would allow other companies and developers to compete with Amazon, as well as no input from city residents and those affected. The NDA is for Amazon's benefit and was clearly done at Amazon's behest.

> Finally, it's not a backroom deal. Part of Amazon's competition was for each city to sign an NDA in the process so cities can't see the bids of other cities. This would have created a bidding war that, surprisingly, Amazon didn't want.

So, it's a backroom deal. Opacity in this process benefits Amazon and hurts the cities, so people got pissed off and rejected it. This isn't hard to understand.