Location: NationStates

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Blues Guitar of Stevie Ray is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, renowned for its devotion to social welfare. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 15.792 billion are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whoever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, socially-minded government stops and the rest of society begins, but it devotes most of its attentions to Social Welfare, with areas such as Law & Order and Defence receiving almost no funds by comparison. The average income tax rate is 57%, and even higher for the wealthy. Private enterprise is illegal, but for those in the know there is a slick and highly efficient black market in Trout Farming.

Roads are often attended by round-the-clock construction crews, tourists from around the world come to visit the country's famous rainforests, citizens are encouraged to report friends, family members or co-workers who seem depressed to the government for "counselling", and refugees from other nations are flocking to Stevie Ray's border. Crime is well under control. Stevie Ray's national animal is the Austinite, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the Blues.

Stevie Ray is ranked 78th in NationStates and 45,650th in the world for Shortest Average Lifespan, scoring -12 on the Bus Surprisal Index.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and