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“Bless the Maker and His Sanctions”

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

The Grinch of UPC is a colossal, genial nation, ruled by the Illustrious UPC with a fair hand, and renowned for its state-planned economy, ban on automobiles, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate, democratic population of 5.055 billion Radiants love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, socially-minded morass — juggles the competing demands of Environment, Education, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Urithiru. The average income tax rate is 90.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Radiant economy, worth 376 trillion Diamond Broams a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector is solely comprised of the Information Technology industry. Average income is 74,468 Diamond Broams, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Builders across UPC are blocked up with orders for new public loos, prison visits increase substantially during election years, weather forecasts are accurate but nobody has the bandwidth to view them, and flash floods that dams could have controlled regularly ravage small towns in mountain valleys. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. UPC's national animal is the Windspren, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is the Church of Honor.

UPC is ranked 280,407^th in the world and 1,108^th in Europeia for Largest Furniture Restoration Industry, scoring -6.78 on the Spitz-Pollish Productivity Index.