The State of East Trades is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, renowned for its public floggings, punitive income tax rates, and devotion to social welfare. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 16.691 billion East Tradesians are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The enormous, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Capital Heights. The average income tax rate is 69.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The large but stagnant East Tradesian economy, worth 123 trillion betales a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is mostly made up of the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Basket Weaving. Average income is 7,394 betales, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Tourists from around the world come to visit the country's famous rainforests, thieves are flogged in public for their crimes, Tetris has been banned for its graphic violent content, and East Trades has designated Capital Heights as its capital city. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. East Trades's national animal is the deer, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

East Trades is ranked 217,627^th in the world and 1^st in The Eastern Atlantic for Largest Gambling Industry, scoring -3.48 on the Kelly Criterion Productivity Index.