I mean, I just made up the $30k number to get a completely different point across. I wasn't saying $30k is the magic number. The actual number will, yes, have to be larger to account for the self-induced inflation. I have no idea where the equilibrium would be. Maybe it's double that. Maybe it's location dependent, or something else. Who knows. But it will be somewhere.

And no, I have no idea how to fund it sustainably in the current economic system; some people think it's doable, and some don't. And other changes in how society/government/life works will almost certainly be necessary in the process. I think the point of the UBI debate isn't "the government can send everyone $30k checks tomorrow and everything will be fine", but rather, the point is to inspire people to move from "this is stupid" to "let me humor the idea and at least help spend some effort investigating to see if there's any way to make it work before we declare failure". There's no guarantee the approach would success if we try, but there is a guarantee that it would fail if nobody is willing to even consider taking it seriously.