Hooray! Amazon chose to take New York and Washington, D.C., up on their HQ2 incentives bids. Ruthless brilliance on their part. I wrote at the beginning of this that Amazon had a “major competitive advantage in rent-seeking,” and wow, have they have outdone themselves.

But the good news is, now North Carolina isn’t having to plumb new depths in cronyism like some mad Captain Nemo.

Make no mistake, that’s what our leaders were fully prepared to do, from Gov. Roy “don’t sacrifice education at the altar of corporate taxes!” Cooper and the General Assembly and even the “we’re so poor please vote us three tax increases this year” Wake County commissioners. Oh, and they would have the full backing of local “tax cuts for corporations just waste the public’s money” media.

Amazon without the “transformative” incentives would have been different. But that wasn’t an option, unfortunately.

So I was over here warning that whoever “wins” the new Amazon headquarters would overpay — and I was hoping it wouldn’t be us. I called it “a sure bet for community buyer’s remorse.”

Which looks like these top Google headlines for the searches “Amazon NY” and “Amazon DC”: