Venn and the art of political maintenance

Since pardons are now for sale at the White House, it’s time for an innovation that streamlines the criminal process.

Discworld provides a sensible model that not only makes crime more efficient but could easily balance the national budget: The Guild of Thieves, Burglars and Allied Trades.

For those of you unfamiliar with this institution, the concept is simple. You regulate crime by licensing it. It’s kind of an advance pardon.

Once you’ve paid your fee and obtained your Guild license, you are allowed to commit a specified number of crimes. Hence, no need for the expense and bother of pardon-seeking, and the government takes in much-needed revenue. You save on law enforcement and you solve another problem: overburdened courts.

There are so many “problems” of this sort that can be easily solved by creating synergies — Venn diagrams you may not have realized existed.

For example, immigration and Social Security.

Social Security, as you know, is a Ponzi scheme not far from collapsing. Apparently it was created by people who thought we’d keep producing huge crops of babies and older people would continue to obligingly die off at reasonable rates. The opposite has happened. We have a desperate need for able bodies as the bottom end of the Social Security pyramid.

Where do we get those able bodies? Immigration, of course.

Hordes of immigrants overwhelming cities with meager social services and an overwhelmed immigration enforcement/court system are problems, but not if those hordes can be put to use saving Social Security. Simply make everyone who wants to enter the country go to areas that need workers. Then Ponzi/Social Security payments can be taken out of their wages. No need for court hearings or expensive border protection.

Ah, but I know what some of you may be reasonably saying: What about the American racist population? Aren’t racists going to be upset that their needs aren’t being met?

Well, yes, they are. Too bad.

Another Venn overlap: Artificial intelligence and homelessness. No, I’m not talking about AI solving the homeless problem — AI doesn’t care about that. What AI does care about is having enormous amounts of energy.

The current AI energy model overburdens the electrical grid, drains resources and damages the environment. There are enormous construction costs.

What AI developers should be doing instead is building giant luxury housing complexes — complete with free medical care and health counseling — for the homeless in exchange for daily hours on treadmills that generate power.

Think of it as a hydroelectric dam using people instead of water.

AI construction is going on in poor neighborhoods anyway. The resources are right there. It’s urban renewal coupled with environmental protection and cost saving — at least until AI wipes out all jobs.

Finally, consider the Venn of all the money spent on Trump vanity projects and the lack of funding for the arts. What cultural institutions need to do is grab that vanity money by promising to put up Trump statues and to slap the Trump name on wings.

The wings can be bathrooms and the statues can be made out of tin foil. Meanwhile, the rest of the money goes to good stuff.

And the Trump stuff gets tossed as soon as he’s gone.

Problems solve problems. You just have to find the right pairing.