James Thomson

If we actually had a reasonable and liveable pension that people could rely on, wouldn't that take the pressure off this massive asset hoarding cycle?

I think, though, the premise of Andy's question that we're all obsessed with hoarding assets, we're not obsessed with it.

The government literally forces us to do it.

We literally do not have a choice.

It's very compulsory super.

Yeah.

That's right.

We're not hoarding assets in super because we all want to swim around in pools of dollar coins.

The government forces you to do this to take pressure off the age pension.

Now, Andy's sort of suggesting that if the age pension was bigger, then we wouldn't have to hoard assets.

You know, the choice we've made is that we do hoard assets so we can have a more sustainable pension system and we don't have to jack up, you know, income taxes or other taxes to increase the age pension.

I'm not sure where Andy expects the, you know, the reasonable and livable increase in the age pension to come from.

can only come from taxation or a reduction in spending, which would be aged care, healthcare, NDIS and defence.

That's it.

Yeah, well, look, no, they're relying on a huge cut to the NDIS.

They are.

It's in the outer year of the budget, but I think the number is something like $19 billion of reductions in the 2030 financial year.

So, wow, are they going to be able to do that?

Let's see.

Yeah, I think so.