The French riots with the Yellow Vests were targeted the same way; the whole thing was blamed on the far right by some players. In reality, they were angry working-class people with a bone to pick, and their primary concerns revolved around hiking taxes on goods and fuel. Issues such as taxes and fuel pricing are usually met with anger from the opposition as well - citing environmental and social equality concerns first and foremost. The trouble in the case of the Yellow Vests was that the majority of them simply couldn't afford to care about the environment in such a way, and that very same tax that was supposed to lift them, became a heavy yoke instead. All of that was also down to a lack of nuanced discussion, in my layman's opinion.

Yep, and it's only a tactic to avoid the people from turning on the Governemnt themselves. It's a vile tactic, how hard is it to listen to what your people want and try and at least meet them half way with solutions without demonising them. I didn't follow the yellow vest protests, how did labeling them as far right work out? Did it make them stop rioting or make thing worse?

I'm well aware.  In fact I've never once said a tiered system wasn't perfectly fine.  I've only said fix the broken tax code before increasing taxes.  Raising taxes in a broken system isn't going to help.  The uber rich will still avoid taxes and upper middle class carries the cross.

And I've said food is out of scope for federal sales tax...  it should be on luxury optional items.  

So yeah, feels like you missed my point(s) completely.

And I'll note I've asked multiple times what is considered rich?  Nobody seems to want to provide a numeric answer.  

But yes, a tier system is wholly supported by me.  I just don't want a tax increase before closing loopholes.  

My percent tax, which is already higher than Trump, shouldn't be increased until a person like him actually pays what he is supposed to.

Why not fix the broken tax code and increase taxes? These two things don't need to be mutually exclusive (and I disagree with your implication that increasing taxes on the wealthy doesn't help. It helps. It could help more, but it helps). Like I said, one isn't an argument against the other. As for the exclusion of food, that doesn't fix the problem. You'd have to carve out a lot more than food. If you actually want a tax only on luxury items, call it a luxury tax and then have no illusions that it isn't going to solve any budget crisis. 

As for what is considered rich, the reason no one has answered (imo) is because it is a silly question. It isn't a binary where if you make, say, $999,999 you aren't rich and then if you make, say, $1,000,000 you are rich. That is why progressive taxation exists in a scale. As individuals make more money, they pay more taxes.

It made it worse, understandably so. There were fears that the movement would spread around the continent. Even the media here reported it as if it was right-wing extremists gone wild. Governments all over were petrified by the whole situation, precisely because it unified people across the political spectrum in their common anger towards the state. Misinformation is a huge problem, whether it's the mob themselves being sparked by it, or the mob being falsely labelled by the media.

Someone wasn’t “just rounded up” by the big monarchies of Europe.

For one he was invited back by Dutch political factions after the fall of Napoleon when we regained independence, seeking to quickly restore the country. William I was the son of William V, the last Stadtholder of the Republican period. For those who don’t know, a Stadholder is a regional governing official with its origin in the later Medieval period. At first there were a couple acting as stewards of one or more provinces, but eventually the Stadholder of Holland became mostly a head of state. Anyway, William I was known as William VI Prince of Orange as a child but took the regal number ‘I’ when he returned in a ship landing on the beach in Scheveningen, first as Prince then named King. His return and his ascension to a throne was met with great enthusiasm I might add. William V and the last couple of generations of the House of Orange-Nassau before him were de facto kings already anyway, and they could trace their lineage back to William the Silent (and William the Silent’s brother), the ‘father of the fatherland’ and who we got our Orange national colour from, himself.

As an interesting side-note William I wasn’t our first King. Shortly before him the ‘Kingdom of Holland’ briefly existed as a vassal state to Napoleon’s French Empire, with Napoleon’s brother Louis Napoleon as its King. He was actually fairly popular because he defied his brother and completely took the side of the Dutch people and tried to do good. This might have helped strengthen the acceptance amongst the people to welcome William I as King.

Do we need to do both?  

And nobody, including yourself, can define rich.  Which means your argument is weak.

Define it.  

You and others want to raise taxes on the "rich." What defines rich?

When do the increased taxes kick in?  

Define rich.

Edit

And nobody, not a single person, in this thread has argued against a progressive tax system.  In fact I'm on record as supporting progressive taxes.  

So why are you fighting an argument nobody made?  

You advocated for a consumption tax (excluding food). This is a regressive tax.
Chrkeller: "I think, at least in the US, a consumption tax makes sense. 10% federal sales on all non food purchases."

You also made numerous statements criticizing the idea of increasing taxes on those with more wealth.
Chrkeller: "if I already pay more in taxes then most people make, why should I pay more?"
Chrkeller: "Now that I have investments people want to tax me more. Not sure how any of that makes sense to me."

You also stated that raising taxes on those with more wealth won't do anything, or won't help.
Chrkeller: "Raising taxes in a broken system isn't going to help."

My arguments are:

A) We should not introduce a consumption tax, as even without taxing food, this will be a regressive tax.
Note: A luxury tax is a very different thing with its own set of pro's and con's. If you wish to advocate for that, the conversation would be different. 

B) Why should those with more wealth pay more? Because they have a greater ability to pay more without a significant sacrifice in quality of life. 

C) Raising taxes on the upper class does generate revenue for the government. While some of that tax may be dodged in a variety of ways, taxes on this class do still increase revenue. As such, I don't believe "there are loopholes right now" is an argument against increasing these tax brackets, but instead a somewhat separate discussion.

D) I see no value in answering your question of "what is rich" with a number. Either explain why this question is so meaningful or get over it.

If you see no value in addressing my points/questions then you are only interested in a one way discussion.  A shame really, but no skin off my back.

You can't answer the question which proves my point.  

You may pay more on tax, but you pay less overall. Universal health care systems have been empirically proven to be cheaper per-person.
The reason for that it is not profit driven like the USA with high insurance costs, Government can operate it with significantly lower margins.



If we look at this chart, the USA is spending almost 3x as much per person than my own nation. And we still have better quality care.
To put that into GDP perspectives that would be 16.9% of GDP verses our 9.3% on GDP spent on healthcare.
And yes. We still have better quality care.

And if we look at this chart which is military spending per capita, Australia still ranks near the top... So it stands to reason that not only can we afford good healthcare, but also spend on our military.


Now the reason I am using per-capita numbers rather than whole numbers is it gives a little bit more of a breakdown of the financial burden per-person... And allows for the population differentials between nations to be irrelevant.

But even if we ignore that... Australia is still outspending many nations on it's military and is able to almost equal Italy which has more than twice the population.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/262742/countries-with-the-highest-military-spending/