It's already been explained many times that UBI would not supplement pensions but replace part of them and be funded through lowered tax free thresholds but you seem determined to remain inside your hay stack.
No, it's because you have the same mentality as Peter Dutton to welfare.
There is also the issue of looking this as an "expense" as in a new cost. It's money that is already flowing somewhere. It's about like saying it can't be true that the Australian GDP is 1.4 trillion dollars because no one could afford that!
Excuse me but we're here and can hear you. In the first place I started my post with a simple "yes" taking your hypothetical at face value. In the second place, you don't control me or the thread so it is perfectly fine for us to go ahead and say what we think without your permission.
Because doing it properly will require large-scale reorganisation of society, government and the economy. There is a lot of sunk cost in the status quo, and a huge change to be made in implementing a real UBI. Governments are conservative by nature - this kind of radical change does not come easily.
No, we don't, because as I said upthread, nobody has done a proper test of UBI. We have small scale experiments considering elements of the UBI package, but no-one has gone the whole way.
Why would a simple means test free payment that has no eligibility rules attached require so much additional bureaucracy? This could be administered through the Australian Taxation Office without even employing extra staff.
There's a whole host of issues that accompany any Machinery of Government (MoG) changes. Believe me - I've worked through three just in my current job. It's never straightforward. It's true that once it is all complete, it will end up in a much simpler configuration. It's getting there that's the complicated part.
We've been through this.
