The Confederacy of Hertalin is a huge, cultured nation, renowned for its pith helmet sales, absence of drug laws, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic population of 950 million Hertalinese are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The enormous, socially-minded, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. The average income tax rate is 80.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The thriving Hertalinese economy, worth 75.5 trillion pounds a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is led by the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Tourism, Book Publishing, and Retail. Average income is 79,447 pounds, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The government recently donated a surfboard to an impoverished family in a landlocked region, prankster scientists legally change their names to silly pseudonyms before major discoveries, police officers that upset their bosses get assigned to 24 hour stakeouts of bike sheds, and minority children spend hours bussing to schools miles away from home. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Hertalin's national animal is the dolphin, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans.

Hertalin is ranked 55,429^th in the world and 46^th in The Internationale for Most Subsidized Industry, scoring 3,278.26 on the Gilded Widget Scale.