Location: the South Pacific

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Peopledom of Soem is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, renowned for its hatred of cheese. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 10.18 billion enjoy a sensible mix of personal and economic freedoms, while the political process is open and the people's right to vote held sacrosanct.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Social Welfare. The average income tax rate is 66%, and even higher for the wealthy. The private sector is almost wholly made up of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, although the government is looking at stamping this out.

Several citizens have complained about scientists abducting their pets for experimentation, truth is often impossible to tell from fiction on the evening news, public footpaths are being slowly eroded by the burgeoning number of ramblers, and school uniforms are compulsory. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Soem's national animal is the Snark, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the Idea.

Soem is ranked 688th in the South Pacific and 23,083rd in the world for Largest Public Sector, scoring 15 on the Bureaucratic Comprehensiveness Rating Scale Index.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and