Episode 226

full
Published on:

1st Jun 2026

UBI Doesn't Kill Jobs — It Kills Purpose

Alaska's $1,700 annual dividend proves exactly nothing — Ron Lynch says the real number is $30K, and that's precisely where complacency sets in. Ron moved $6 billion in consumer sales, called Spielberg from a grocery store basement at 23, and made four films — and his read is that UBI doesn't hand out income, it hands out outcome. Outcome without effort kills purpose. His charity TeleHelp gave rice and beans, never Lunchables, because limitation is where creativity lives. When a neighbor dies their UBI redistributes — that's tribal math, and it means your death is someone else's windfall. Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley take him through all of it.

Timestamps:

  • (00:00) $15K monthly government check – free income or a trap?
  • (01:25) Spielberg call at 23 – grocery clerk, basement, gets the meeting
  • (04:59) $150 in art supplies – the path to a million-dollar painting
  • (07:07) Purpose destroyed – Ron's one-sentence verdict on UBI's real cost
  • (09:16) TeleHelp gave rice, not Lunchables – why limitation beats comfort
  • (10:52) Alaska's $1,700 check – why it proves nothing about real UBI
  • (14:28) The $30K number – where complacency lives, not freedom
  • (16:47) Tribal math – your death doubles someone else's UBI check

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Transcript
Jerremy Newsome:

Here's a question worth sitting with.

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If the government sent you fifteen

thousand dollars a month, every

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month, guaranteed for life, would you

feel free or would you feel owned?

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That's not far off.

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Right now, as AI takes more and more

jobs, the answer people keep reaching

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for is UBI, universal basic income.

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On the surface, it sounds humane,

sounds fair, but our guest has moved

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over six billion dollars in sales

for brands like GoPro and Samsung.

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He's also made four films,

including "Trust Me," which maps

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the digital and financial rails

already being built around us.

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And he has spent decades teaching

people how to own their value

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instead of waiting for rescue.

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He has a very different read

on where the UBI road leads.

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My name is Jerremy Alexander Newsome.

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With me, as always, is the co-host

with the mostest, Dave "DC" Conley,

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and this is Solving America's Problems.

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Ron Lynch, I'm really

excited to have you here.

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Thank you so much, my brother.

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Ron Lynch: Thank you for having me.

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I appreciate it.

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I think I can hear the crickets in

the background of your tropical,

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Jerremy Newsome: Yes.

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Ron Lynch: moment.

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It's fantastic.

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Jerremy Newsome: Thank you.

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I'm over here in Costa Rica for the

week visiting my dear friend Sean Kelly.

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Ron Lynch: Oh,

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah,

beautiful little spot.

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So Ron, this is wild, right?

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Man, you went from short order

cook and grocery checker, which is

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amazing, to building campaigns that

moved billions in consumer sales.

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Tell me about that one specific

moment early on when you felt in

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your bones that your effort had

directly created something of value,

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and what that actually felt like.

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Ron Lynch: Well, it, was kind

of, not first nature to me.

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I was kind of a shy kid, and the grocery

business forced me into interacting

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with customers, and that learning to

converse with people on a one-to-one

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basis from a sales perspective was useful.

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Jerremy Newsome: Mm-hmm.

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Ron Lynch: Then we had cooking kiosks

in the store which were demonstrations,

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and so that was a s- I, I learned

how the cooking demonstrations,

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selling one-to-one, kind of at

like a fair environment, worked.

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And then I had this p- in- secret desire

to be rich and famous as an actor.

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I was fortunate enough to get an

audition, when I was about 20 years

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old, for a guy named Robert Altman,

who was a big-time movie director,

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and he hired me to be in a film.

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And within about six months of that,

I had kind of faced all of my, I'll

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say my social fears of selling,

being on camera, kind of coming

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out of my shell, and that got me to

where I wanted to write screenplays.

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And I wrote my first couple

of screenplays, and I still

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worked in the grocery store.

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by coincidence, Kathleen Kennedy of

Kennedy and Spielberg, w- her sister

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was one of my customers, and I gave

her a couple of screenplays to read,

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and she read them, and she got me on

the phone with Spielberg and Kennedy.

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So here I was in my basement

apartment at 23 years old talking

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to Steven Spielberg and Kathleen

Kennedy, and they were saying,

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Jerremy Newsome: Crazy.

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Ron Lynch: at

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, so cool.

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Ron Lynch: And so, so

that, that was really...

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It, it was that kind of...

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I'd never had that kind of external

validation, but my first, my first

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audition, I got a SAG card and I

was in a movie with Jeff Daniels,

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and then s- months, a year later,

here I am on the phone with these

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guys and I'm like, "All right.

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I think that I have a path here."

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So it built a lot of,

accidental confidence.

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maybe even cockiness at that age.

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I was...

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I, I felt like, "Oh, okay.

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I, I've been chosen."

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Jerremy Newsome: Sure.

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Ron Lynch: off I went, and when...

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I had some friends that were looking

for space in a grocery store to film

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a testimonial segment for the George

Foreman Grill, and I looked at their

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business and I said, "I would rather

be in their business making commercials

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than in a grocery store selling pasta."

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And they were kind enough to me do

that, and I jumped ship from the grocery

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business and went into the advertising

business, and my first long-form

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infomercial was for a food processor,

did $80 million in the first year.

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I was kind of cemented into

that sales movie category,

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advertising category pretty fast.

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that's kinda, that's

kinda how that happened.

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And so now that, now it's been a

35-year career of making films and

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commercials and teaching this stuff.

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And, time, I...

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It's g- it's granted me the free

time to research and get into things

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that are more and interesting for

me culturally, including politics,

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Jerremy Newsome: All the good stuff.

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Yeah.

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All the things we should

be talking about more.

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Ron Lynch: Yeah, all, all these things

that ended up in these m- these kind

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of documentaries that I've made.

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So that's, that's, that's how we got here.

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Jerremy Newsome: Beautiful.

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Ron Lynch: to the conversation.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah,

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Alex: And to kinda dive into that, let's

just call it value mechanism, both you

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and I are very similar in the fact that

we built a career on a specific idea

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about the nature of money, which is

it's a byproduct of value creation, so

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not something that exists on its own.

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When did that understanding actually lock

in for you, not as a marketing concept,

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but as a worldview that changed how you

read all the economic policy arguments

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that you've encountered since then?

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Bernard: it happened

at, in a, in a moment.

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I had a friend that was teaching a

seminar and he was on stage and he

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said, "Where does money come from?

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It comes from other people's

pockets, other people's wallets."

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And the, the...

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It struck a chord in me because

I viscerally knew it wasn't true

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And it, it, it, I wouldn't say it

angered me, but it really did, the,

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I guess the popular word is trigger.

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Ron Lynch: And so I went into

that thought and I went, "That

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is not where money comes from."

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And I...

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he's a good friend of mine to

this day, and he's s- sc- I'll say

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succumbed to my belief in that,

money is created out of value.

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So the simple way that I tell people is

if I go and buy $50 worth of canvas at

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the art store and $100 worth of paint,

I have the capacity to potentially

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sell 100,000 to a million dollar

piece of artwork, and that artwork

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can be sold, traded, loaned, insured.

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Jerremy Newsome: Mm-hmm.

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Ron Lynch: an asset.

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Asset creation is where value comes from.

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It's I s- get a stack of lumber

and a piece of land, and the two of

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those things cost $800,000, yet I

build a $4 million house out of them.

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Assets are created from vision and action.

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So o- once you understand what that,

that that is actually what our entire

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economy globally is based upon is

value creation, you'll understand

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that debt is leveraging future value

creation that hasn't been made yet.

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Jerremy Newsome: Mm-hmm.

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Yes.

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Come on, dude.

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That's it.

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I love that.

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I love that vision.

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And I agree with it, by the

way, totally, because it is...

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I, I wrote a book called "Money

Grows on Trees," where the value

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is there, the money is there.

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You just have to figure out how

to create the transaction, which

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is the, the idea, the vision, and

then, of course, the implementation.

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talk to me about the, I don't know,

let's call it a psychological mechanism.

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What happens, in your opinion,

inside a person when income begins

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arriving without a corresponding

act of value creation on their part?

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Ron Lynch: It's r- in, in a

sentence, purpose is destroyed.

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Dave: Wow

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.

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Ron Lynch: W- you have,

y- you don't have purpose.

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If somebody is handing you...

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this is, this is the infant.

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The infant gets free milk from the breast.

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An infant has no purpose, and the

first thing we try to do is teach it

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to walk and get off the breast and

feed itself and get some independence.

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Jerremy Newsome: like

you're talking to me, bro.

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Ron Lynch: Right?

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That's, it's w- w- we- our, our goal,

goal here in life, and, whether you

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like this number or not, 57% of all

people walking this earth belong to an

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Abrahamic religion, and then there's

a whole bunch that belong to faith

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practices that are not Abrahamic, and

actually a very small portion of the

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world is truly atheist or agnostic.

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And so the, the vast majority of people

have this core belief that we were created

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by a creator who tells us to come here

and create, to have purpose, and our,

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our mission is to find that purpose,

and hopefully it is to the benefit of

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other people That the whole idea of a

tribe is a whole bunch of people that

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all bring a unique aspect of living

to a culture, and the culture itself

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propagates from everybody's contribution.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.

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Ron Lynch: So the danger in UBI is

it removes the idea of contribution.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yes.

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Yes.

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Ron Lynch: that fair?

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Jerremy Newsome: it is.

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It's very fair.

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Yep.

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I'm just let, let that sink in a little

bit because I mean, you've, you've watched

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welfare systems up close through your own

charity work, which is incredible, right?

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Feeding kids in food distress and decades

of policy reading, you and Dave as well.

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Tell me about one specific pattern

you've watched repeat where you could

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see a system trapping someone across

generations rather than launching them.

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Ron Lynch: Well, I'll just contrast m-

the system that we created in TeleHelp

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with the system that the government

created in welfare, is the welfare

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system allows people to come back to the

well as much and as often as they can.

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They spend as fast as they can.

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They run out.

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They're still in s- they're

constantly a mode of scarcity.

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Jerremy Newsome: Mm-hmm.

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Ron Lynch: In, in TeleHelp, we

only allowed people to come in once

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every 13 weeks to get help with

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Jerremy Newsome: Hmm.

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Ron Lynch: probably a month's

worth of food, but we wouldn't give

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them three months' worth of food.

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Now, it wasn't because we were

cruel, is what we know is that

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people could find a way to survive

because they were surviving.

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People aren't starving in America.

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We were relieving the food burden

so that they would get nutrition.

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gave them food that would cause them to

have to cook and sit and eat together.

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So we wouldn't give them

Lunchables where the box was more

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nutritious than the contents.

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But we would give them rice and beans

and meat and vegetables and salad and,

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so that they would have to make a meal

and sit down and have time together.

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So we were, we were cr- creating a

social construct with limitations.

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People need limitations 'cause

limitations create creativity.

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Jerremy Newsome: Right.

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Ron Lynch: You must have boundaries.

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escape from a desert, but

you can escape from a prison.

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So that's why we make

sandboxes and sandboxes.

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Kids become creative, right?

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We-- It's, it's through limitations

that we h- find our own creativity.

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Dave: Hmm.

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Ron Lynch: you don't want dependency.

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You want support with liberty.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yes.

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Yes, yes, yes.

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So talk to me a little bit about--

'cause I'm, as I'm doing research,

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and you are our first guest on this

series, so I'm continuing to just

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educate myself and learn a-as well.

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As I was digging into the Alaska's

Permanent Fund, I kind of expected to

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find the dependency signal that you would

predi-- that you would predict or that

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I would predict, but the analysis found

near zero employment Effect across what?

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40 years?

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And then when Alaska's, Alaskans voted

in:

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those funds, 84% said to keep them exactly

as they are, which kind of surprised

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me given everything we understand

about how incentives shape behavior.

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How do you read what was

actually operating in people's

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decision-making there?

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Ron Lynch: So, the-- Alaska's not

proof that UBI creates paradise.

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the Alaska Permanent Fund, it's,

it's often used as the example of a

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UBI-like system, and it was created in

nineteen seventy-six to save a portion

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of oil revenue for future generations.

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And since the nineteen eighties, it's

paid eligible residents a dividend.

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So the payout varies, and it's, in the

one thousand to two thousand dollar range.

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So it's kinda like a tax refund.

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It's not a living.

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twenty twenty-four, the dividend

was about seventeen hundred bucks.

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it's not enough money to live

on, and it's not replacing work.

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It's not a full basic income.

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It's more like, a, a household

bonus for a family with kids.

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And for a single adel- adult,

that certainly helps, but

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nobody's really living on it.

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Jerremy Newsome: Right.

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Ron Lynch: cave.

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So the, the-- How you-- I understand the

opinion about the resea-search, but you

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have to look at what we're researching.

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The core information is not a replacement.

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So the, the-- I wouldn't even look to

Alaska and say, "Oh, UBIs ruin people."

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It doesn't that particular case.

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It doesn't prove...

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It just proves that people can be mailed

a check, and they'll spend the money.

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It's not gonna change the culture,

and it doesn't, it, it doesn't

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inhibit employment at that level

'cause it's just not enough money.

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Dave: that's, that was also what

showed up in, with the Cherokee,

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Indians and the casino dividends.

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That was like four to six grand a year.

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like nobody's, nobody's living on that.

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And, but they also found that, that

poverty fell, Children's li-- are

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lifted out, Like, there were, there

were real in behavioral problems, higher

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education attainment went into adulthood.

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So I, I guess

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Jerremy Newsome: Mm-hmm,

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Dave: framework accounts for

outcomes like, like Alaska,

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like the Cherokee Indians.

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Does that mean that there's

like a, there's a, like there's

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amount, there's a slope to this?

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Like, how would you...

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Ron Lynch: you get a fourth-- if you get

a four thousand dollar tax refund, does

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it change everything in your household,

or does it change some minor things?

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And if you're poor, what does it change?

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it, yeah, it does move the poverty

because let's as- you're assuming

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that they're a person's, rent is

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Jerremy Newsome: mm-hmm.

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Ron Lynch: vehicle probably.

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They have their basics.

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Now you lay $4,000 on top of that,

you've, you're, that's probably going

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to food and entertainment, frankly.

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Dave: Yeah.

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Ron Lynch: It's, that, that's

how humans spend money.

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So

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Dave: Hmm

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Ron Lynch: So let me give you, just

two t- kind of different takes on this.

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One is let's look at UBI.

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Let's- I loved your example

of it's $15,000 a month.

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That's a huge amount of money, by the way.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.

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Ron Lynch: grand, 150 grand a year.

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So, so where is that coming from?

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Is that coming from debt or

is that coming from surplus?

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Are you telling me that, "Hey, we

believe that robotics and AI is gonna

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be so efficient that the culture's gonna

be throwing off this much affluence

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that it can afford to distribute that

affluence to the citizenry at that level"?

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Well, first of all, you're gonna

wipe out the national debt in a

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year if it, there's that much.

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'Cause your personal share of the

nat- well, in two years, your personal

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share of the national debt is $380,000.

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Jerremy Newsome: Yep.

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Ron Lynch: So, and that's taxpayers.

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That's, that's people who

actually pay taxes, not

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Jerremy Newsome: Right.

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Right.

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Ron Lynch: you're talking

about a lot of money there.

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W- so I wanna know where

that money's coming from.

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So I, I'll say that that, I think

that number's highly inflated.

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I think it would be more

like $30,000 a year.

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carrot would be $15,000 a month.

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They put it into practice, and you've

seen the government do this before.

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When you get to the reality of it, it's

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.

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Ron Lynch: turned out to be 30 grand a

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Jerremy Newsome: Sure, sure.

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Ron Lynch: Okay, w- so what

has 30 grand a year bought you?

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Latency, complacency, and

a lack of upper mobility.

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You The, the countries that

succeed with national sovereign

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Jerremy Newsome: need that.

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Ron Lynch: they don't write

checks to their people.

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They make electricity more affordable.

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They make healthcare more affordable.

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They make education better and freer.

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you take the base things that grow

and nurture people, and you actually

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put them in a framework they still

have to do something and create

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opportunity for themselves, but

you've made it easier for them to

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make the opportunity for themselves.

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And handing out checks

is handing out outcome.

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It says, it, we say it's handing out

income, it's actually handing out outcome.

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do that enough, you're gonna get

complacency in the audience 'cause people

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who don't ... Most people operate out of

pain avoidance, and if you eliminate the

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pain, if you drug them, then you're going

to make more people and not want to work.

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And that is, that's why I

say that's removing purpose.

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We want a culture where people are

growing and building and innovating.

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Dave: Yeah,

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, we need that.

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Yes, it is.

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Ron Lynch: You didn't, I g-

I mean, think about this in

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let's just say caveman times.

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Do you picture a caveman village

where half of the people sat around

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on their butts and the others

hunted, killed, cooked, and cleaned?

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No, they would turn on the

ones that are sitting on their

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butts and they would kill them.

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They would

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Jerremy Newsome: Mm-hmm.

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Ron Lynch: R- that would

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Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.

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Ron Lynch: know that.

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That's human nature.

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You'd get angry with the lazy.

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So in, i- i- in the culture, imagine this.

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I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something

that's probably a little inflammatory,

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but I'm gonna say it with purpose.

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In, in Minneapolis, in Min- in Minnesota,

there's a Somali problem with benefits.

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Jerremy Newsome: C--

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Ron Lynch: Boom.

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Jerremy Newsome: one.

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Ron Lynch: Weird.

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Jerremy Newsome: Big one.

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Ron Lynch: took something from the

news and I twisted it into a cultural

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problem that's ac- actually not true,

and I did it with the word Somali.

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Because that's how we

get sold these things,

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Jerremy Newsome: Hmm.

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Ron Lynch: lot of Somalis in

the United States of America.

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How many of them are

involved in this fraud?

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I would say as a percentage,

a very, very small percent.

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But you can see us culturally attaching

the behavior of a small group to the

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larger label of the culture of that

group and saying, "We gotta get the

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Somalis out of the country," or,

"We gotta solve the Somali problem."

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Well, it's not a Somali problem,

it's a corruption problem.

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But if you're, if you get into tribal

times and you start handing out UBIs

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to everybody, and you live in a culture

that is intentionally divisive through

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the news media, you're going to get to

a situation really quick where I realize

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that if you're dead, my UBI doubles.

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Jerremy Newsome: Hmm.

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Ron Lynch: is I will see more unfairness

from the other groups if we all have

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:

UBI, and pretty soon I'm gonna go,

and, "Hey, that group is misusing their

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:

money and they're lazy and they're

not doing anything, and my group is

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:

justified," 'cause that's how we do it.

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:

We're political animals.

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:

And if we have X amount of UBI to

go around, the problem is not the

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:

UBI suddenly, it's the people.

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If I got, if we had half as many

people, I'd have twice the UBI.

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And then again, if we had half as many

then, I'd have four times the UBI.

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And that is how people think

when you start to take a resource

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:

and split it amongst a group,

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:

quote-unquote, "to pr- to

promote equanimity outcome."

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Alex: In a UBI world, the math

gets better every time someone

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on the other side disappears.

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:

Ron named it — not a flaw, a feature.

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:

The infrastructure to run that

equation is already in place.

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What it looks like next.

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About the Podcast

Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.