The Impending baldness of Ethel mermania is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by Fearless Leader with an iron fist, and remarkable for its pith helmet sales, smutty television, and public floggings. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 19.957 billion Ethel mermanians are ruled by a mostly-benevolent dictator, who grants the populace the freedom to live their own lives but watches carefully for anyone to slip up.

The relatively small, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Environment, and Defense. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of The Great White Way. The average income tax rate is 1.0%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Ethel mermanian economy, worth a remarkable 3,237 trillion yids a year, is quite specialized and led by the Retail industry, with major contributions from Tourism, Arms Manufacturing, and Gambling. Black market activity is extensive. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is an impressive 162,228 yids, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.1 times as much as the poorest.

Small shoes often wash up on the beach, on-duty Air Ethel mermania flight attendants are usually seen napping in first class, the Ethel mermanian delegation to the World Assembly is having a hard time convincing people that international law will "pay for itself somehow...", and Fearless Leader has been declared supreme ruler for all eternity. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Ethel mermania's national animal is the ethel merman, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans, and its national religion is the cult of fearless leaderism.

Ethel mermania is ranked 24,815^th in the world and 8^th in Snazzy for Most Developed, scoring 70.97 on the Human Development Index.