The Startling Empire of Riemstagrad IV is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by Riem with a fair hand, and remarkable for its public floggings, smutty television, and daily referendums. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic, humorless population of 30.05 billion Riemstagrad IVians 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 minute, pro-business, outspoken government, or what there is of one, prioritizes Industry, although Education is also considered important, while Environment and Law & Order aren't funded at all. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Riemstagradgrad. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 1.4%.

The frighteningly efficient Riemstagrad IVian economy, worth a remarkable 4,381 trillion Shares a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Automobile Manufacturing, Soda Sales, and Woodchip Exports. Average income is an impressive 145,802 Shares, with the richest citizens earning 5.4 times as much as the poorest.

Political candidates who don't release their birth certificates are presumed to have been born in Maxtopia, a video of Riem wearing shock-blue face paint and smashing an electric guitar in front of a frenzied crowd is on endless repeat on the nightly news, homeless people can be found sleeping on streets in front of unoccupied second homes, and school lunches are made with hypo-allergenic wood pulp. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, probably because of the absence of a police force. Riemstagrad IV's national animal is the Share, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Metal.

Riemstagrad IV is ranked 311,162^nd in the world and 10^th in Founderless for Most Eco-Friendly Governments, scoring -40.99 on the Dolphin Recycling Awareness Index.