The Budding Forest of Grace Wellesley Thayer is a massive, orderly nation, ruled by Welly Thayer with an iron fist, and remarkable for its ubiquitous missile silos, absence of drug laws, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 1.939 billion Thayerians 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 relatively small, liberal, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Industry, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Saint-Paul-de-Vence. The average income tax rate is 17.5%.

The frighteningly efficient Thayerian economy, worth 191 trillion wellies a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Retail, Soda Sales, and Uranium Mining. Average income is 98,984 wellies, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.2 times as much as the poorest.

Carefully-staged grief is displayed by Welly Thayer after national disasters, journalists often nap through tedious police press briefings, everyone hates people who encourage hate, and under love's heavy burden Welly Thayer sinks lower in the political right's esteem. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Grace Wellesley Thayer's national animal is the elk, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Thayerian deference.

Grace Wellesley Thayer is ranked 252,154^th in the world and 4,551^st in the South Pacific for Most Patriotic, with 1.97 flags saluted per person per day.