Great glitz, bad economics

And so it goes: Fall River officials, excited by the glitz of a big techno name, give huge tax breaks to get Amazon to built a giant warehouse with low-paid workers  there while loyal local companies get no break. They must subsidize Jeff Bezos. Does anyone ever do a macro-economic stuff of how many jobs might be created if all businesses in an area  were  to get a tax break instead of a sweetheart deal for a big, sexy out-of-state company? Too much thought required!

It reminds me of the reasoning that goes into luring casinos to an area.  Casinos REDUCE an area's income and jobs by draining discretionary income from existing businesses and sending it to the owners and/or operators out of state. But the local officials want the headline of  getting hundreds of job at one place, rather than the dozen here, the five there, lost at hundreds of small establishments when the casino moves in.

-- Robert Whitcomb