The Holy Empire of Japhetic Free States is a small, efficient nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape and spontaneously combusting cars. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, devout population of 40 million Japhites enjoy great individual freedoms in everything except elections, which, where they exist at all, are populist shams for a dictatorship government that has no intention of ever giving up power.

The minute, liberal, pro-business, well-organized government, or what there is of one, juggles the competing demands of Spirituality, Welfare, and Education. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 5.0%.

The very strong Japhetic Free Statesian economy, worth 2.55 trillion New American Shekels a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Pizza Delivery industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Retail, and Furniture Restoration. Average income is 63,695 New American Shekels, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 233,812 per year while the poor average 12,279, a ratio of 19.0 to 1.

Newly synthesized elements' half-lives are a million times shorter than the time it takes to say their names, all tariffs have been abolished, politicians "baring all" for the camera isn't always a figure of speech, and legitimate job descriptions now include "smiling and waving". Crime is a problem, probably because of the absence of a police force. Japhetic Free States's national animal is the Black Eagle, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution.

Japhetic Free States is ranked 137,955^th in the world and 1^st in Nova Americana for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 70.36 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.