The Second Best Colony of Second Best Puppet 23 is a colossal, efficient nation, ruled by Noah with an iron fist, and renowned for its closed borders, national health service, and parental licensing program. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless, devout population of 8.072 billion Second Best Puppet 23ians are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The large, corrupt, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Administration, and Industry. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 91.9%.

The frighteningly efficient Second Best Puppet 23ian economy, worth a remarkable 1,887 trillion cards a year, is broadly diversified and mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Retail, Book Publishing, Woodchip Exports, and Uranium Mining. Average income is an amazing 233,787 cards, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 738,914 per year while the poor average 56,475, a ratio of 13.1 to 1.

Businesses often fire workers in favour of cheaper automatic systems, Second Best Puppet 23ians caught jaywalking often have their houses seized by the police, intellectual snobbery has the cognoscenti sneering at anyone who doesn't have an opinion on the semiological drift of Umberto Eco's works, and the general public only knows their favorite politician's first name. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Second Best Puppet 23's national animal is the legendary, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Second Best Puppet 23 is ranked 6,813^th in the world and 4^th in Two for Highest Average Incomes, with 233,787.17 Standard Monetary Units.