I wonder if we mightn't fragment our borders a little more.

To this end: retail outlets will become embassies of the nation that they represent. There are two elements to consider: (1) what embassy functions will a retail outlet have? and (2) how do we determine what nation a retail outlet represents?

My feeling is that it would not be reasonable to demand that traditional administrative or diplomatic embassy functions be carried out by the usual staff of glassy-eyed kyphotic high school drop-outs, so the embassorial status would be a geographic-political: the retail outlet would be regarded as the sovereign territory of the nation they represent, subject to and governed in accordance with the laws that nation. The only other embassy service they offer would be to an individual who finds themselves alluvasudden seeking asylum while in the provinces, or indeed, anywhere away from the usually douce metropolitan post and zip codes - such unfortunates will be able to rock up the counter in a Abercrombie and Fitch or wherever and demand political asylum.

The question as to how to determine what nation a retail outlet represents is technical and boring, so please feel free to skip this part: the way to determine the nation represented is to follow the retail outlet's ownership up the corporate chain until you reach the domicile of the last majority owner, or the nation on whose stock exchange the parent company is listed.
-- calum, Jun 25 2013

8th of 7, coming at this from the opposite direction Government_20Franchises
11 years ago! [calum, Jun 26 2013]

Ah if you base it on owner domicile, not a few owners probably own their islands outright or live on yachts in international waters. I always stay awake for the boring parts.
-- 4and20, Jun 25 2013


Yeah, which is a good thing, I think, because people can claim asylum on a yacht and thereby get to live out Simon Le Bon fantasies.
-- calum, Jun 25 2013


I think we can skip the determination of the retail outlet's representative nation - but only so as to moot the idea of entirely extra-national corporate entities - perhaps notionally incorporated in orbit, on the moon, or in international waters (for tax purposes, naturally)
-- zen_tom, Jun 25 2013


Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong - Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson.

I guess I'd want to be a citizen of Holiday Wine Cellar.
-- normzone, Jun 25 2013


Use ATM booths for fast wide world covering asylum service
-- piluso, Jun 27 2013


In Spain it's very common for the homeless to sleep in ATM booths all night.
-- 4and20, Jun 29 2013


<adds kyphotic to lexicon>
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 29 2013



random, halfbakery