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“Bait used to be believable”

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The Democratic Republic of Silksongs is a huge, efficient nation, remarkable for its rum-swilling pirates, restrictive gun laws, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 300 million Silksongsians 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 medium-sized, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Administration, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 44.5%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The powerhouse Silksongsian economy, worth 22.8 trillion geos a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, fairly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, Retail, and Furniture Restoration. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 76,138 geos, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.1 times as much as the poorest.

NationStates is now a popular brand of laxatives despite Max Barry's protests, exorbitant spending on icebreakers breaks the ice at every budget meeting, the entire entry for Silksongs in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the World reads 'mostly harmless', and Silksongsian Standard Vodka is the only drink that bars stock. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Silksongs's national animal is the spider, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Silksongs is ranked 43,455^th in the world and 681^st in the South Pacific for Largest Furniture Restoration Industry, scoring 4,884.11 on the Spitz-Pollish Productivity Index.