Ken V The politics of envy (altho I have no desire to own a machine like this much as I love aircraft, so envy doesn't come into it) are almost always self defeating, but there is one little word in there you seem to have overlooked-'almost'.
This will be my last reply on this topic as I do not wish to get sucked into back and forth bickering. That being said, the desire to use predatory taxes to punish people because they are very rich and can afford things you can't even dream of is the very definition of the politics of envy.
To put this in perspective, while there is considerable pressure here in the USA to engage in predatory taxation, it remains a minority position and fortunately is generally frowned upon. Here in the USA not only is it unlikely predatory taxes will be applied to this project, but it is highly likely that local communities will offer tax
breaks and other incentives to attract the manufacturer to their community. If you doubt that consider Virgin Galactic, founded
and funded by a BRITISH guy, but operating in the USA. Only the very rich will be able to afford to take a ride in Branson's private space ship, and several states/cities in the USA competed and offered various INCENTIVES to have that space ship built and/or operated in their community.
Now, about this statement:
It might cost a few jobs but only a few and anyone working on this project would have to be pretty special because of the technology and can easily get work elsewhere.
The above statement is an acknowledgement that predatory taxation moves such high paying specialist jobs to another community. The point being missed is that as good as high paying jobs are for individuals, those jobs are even better for the
community where those jobs are located. Just as important, the community is improved by having people with "pretty special" skills live there. You can't see that pushing those people and those jobs elsewhere is self defeating? If a community keeps that up, pretty soon that community will look like a typical coal mining town: dirty and depressed. It is self defeating. Do it at a national level, and the nation starts looking like a coal town. Sound familiar?