The United Kingdom of Veldig is a huge, cultured nation, notable for its public floggings, compulsory military service, and stringent health and safety legislation. The devout population of 497 million Veldigians are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The relatively small, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Industry, and Defense. The average income tax rate is 22.8%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but inefficient Veldigian economy, worth 26.7 trillion dollars a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is broadly diversified, is led by the Basket Weaving industry, with major contributions from Automobile Manufacturing, Information Technology, and Uranium Mining. Average income is 53,771 dollars, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The government tells its citizens to 'forgive and forget', internet searches for the inventor of the three-wheeled steam-powered Veldigian weed picker are way up, the military is slashing spending on conventional arms and diverting it to spending on prosthetic arms, and ambitious "businessmen" use their children to sell and advertise their products. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Veldig's national animal is the lion.

Veldig is ranked 102,455^th in the world and 5,421^st in Lazarus for Most Subsidized Industry, scoring 1,348.75 on the Gilded Widget Scale.