Spotlight on:

“We Love Bugs”

Overview • Factbook • Policies • People • Government • Economy • Rank • Trend • Cards

The Free Land of Bug Juice is a massive, efficient nation, ruled by The Big Board of Bugs with a fair hand, and notable for its keen interest in outer space, pith helmet sales, and spontaneously combusting cars. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic population of 1.932 billion Bug Juice drinkers are effectively ruled by a group of massive corporations, who run for political office and provide their well-off citizens with world-class goods and services. Their poorer citizens, however, are mostly starving to death while being urged to go out and get real jobs. The populace has reasonably extensive civil rights, although these are mostly aimed at allowing them to buy whatever they like.

The tiny, pro-business government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Administration, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Hivegate. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 8.0%.

The powerhouse Bug Juice drinker economy, worth 178 trillion bugs a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Retail industry, with significant contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Soda Sales, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. Average income is 92,438 bugs, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 264,703 per year while the poor average 25,696, a ratio of 10.3 to 1.

A popular saying is "a chicken for every pot and an abortion clinic on every street", authorities are looking for a stool pigeon to rat out who is stealing food from pigeon toilets, it is considered unpatriotic to learn a foreign language, and requests to "pass the salt" are supported by tank divisions. Crime, especially youth-related, is pervasive, probably because of the absence of a police force. Bug Juice's national animal is the bug, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Bug Juice is ranked 9,496^th in the world and 2^nd in Shadowport for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring 5,862.01 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.