The Republic of Thorn148 is a massive, efficient nation, notable for its pith helmet sales, ubiquitous missile silos, and absence of drug laws. The hard-nosed, humorless, devout population of 3.432 billion Thorn148ians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The large, corrupt government juggles the competing demands of Industry, Defense, and Administration. The average income tax rate is 74.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Thorn148ian economy, worth 469 trillion pesos a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is an enormous, deeply entrenched, fairly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, Woodchip Exports, and Information Technology. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is an impressive 136,762 pesos, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.1 times as much as the poorest.

Families returning from international vacations are unable to get their children back into the country, one does not simply walk into the tundra, holidays are regarded as the most miserable time of the year, and the working classes live and die on the fields of the farming communes. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Thorn148's national animal is the leopard, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Thorn148 is ranked 7,653^rd in the world and 170^th in the Rejected Realms for Highest Foreign Aid Spending, scoring 2,153.09 on the Clooney Contribution Index.