Shalampaxian Integrity
Among those people outside of Shalampax who have heard of us, Shalampaxians have gained a reputation of being less than the most honest people in the world.
This perception came about and has been perpetuated because 60 percent of our GDP is derived from cult religion companies, 30 percent from spam companies, and a further seven percent comes from companies that generate horoscopes. For some reason that I can’t fathom, these industries tend to have a less than sterling reputation in most of the world.
The leaders of Shalampaxian companies will tell you that, despite their industries’ reputations, they operate under the highest of ethical standards and are always truthful. In fact, I think they work hard at convincing themselves of that because then the acting job required to get other people to believe it is that much easier.
Nevertheless, the truth is that most and probably all of us Shalampaxians are willing to bend the truth when it serves our purposes. In fact, the only reason why we bend, rather than break the truth is that we’ve become experts at creating exceptionally flexible truths.
It wasn’t always such. There was a time when no one—absolutely no one—in Shalampax lied. It happened for about one hour in the middle of the night on July 23, 1989. By some exceptional coincidence, all Shalampaxians were asleep at the time and none of us were talking in our sleep.
At least, none of us were awake to hear anyone else talking in their sleep, which amounts to the same thing. “If a tree falls in the forest ….” yada, yada yada.
So you see, it is possible for Shalampaxians to stop lying. However, it usually requires powerful anesthetics. And that’s the truth.
Shalampaxians then are really no different from the rest of the world. Everyone lies. Some people are just better at it than others.
@Patricia: My head is hurting. If everyone lies, that means you’re lying. But if you’re lying then you could be telling the truth, but obviously not about everyone lying, which would make you a liar, which … oh, hell. I need an extra strength aspirin now.
This analysis accounted for only 97% of the GNP of Shalampax. Might we reasonably assume that the other 3% (or 300% if truth be told) comes from out-and-out fraud? Like bilking the bank accounts of unsuspecting rubes?
@David: I’m surprised. You often know more about Shalampax than I do. The link on “our GDP” in my blog post above goes to a page that talks about our economy that has been on the official Shalampax Web site for some time now. There’s a graph on that page that shows that the remaining 3% is spit in equal 1% shares between coconuts, fish and “other”. The outright skimming off people’s bank accounts doesn’t show up at all in our national accounts.
Oh the shame – I’m guilty of link-click-failus.
@David: No need to feel ashamed. I think you’re the only non-Shalampaxian who has ever read any of the official Shalampax Web site.