Pan-American Concord

President

The PAC President (colloquially referred to as the "Chief", or the "CEO") represents the Executive body of the government, and is responsible for deciding the nations objectives, having veto power on all decisions of individual boards of the concord, and is the commander of the country's armed forces. The President is elected by a two-thirds vote by the PAC board of directors, and can only be replaced upon their death, upon resignation, or by the unanimous decision of all members of the board in a "vote of non-confidence".  

PAC Board of Directors

Also known as "the Board", this group is made up of the CEOs of the major corporations of the country. The definition of "major corporation" in PAC's consitution is "A Corporate entity who, through the provision of essential services to the public, is integral to the well-being of all citizens and to the continued prosperity of the concord". While this seems clear at first glance, the legal definitions of this statement have been so constricted by court decisions and executive orders that a company attaining or losing membership on the Board is extremely rare.   Board members are somewhat equivalent to old-government ministers, as they are each responsible for providing a unique service to the nation that their subsidiaries specialize in (agriculture, water, transportation, security, international affairs, internal affairs, entertainment, medical services etc). In developing company policies in line with the President's direction, they are effectively PAC's legislative branch.  

Congress

The Pan-American Congress is the elected body of PAC. While it is De Jure the ultimate authority of the nation, where elected representatives can curtail anti-consitutional actions by corporations, it is De Facto a rubber-stamp for the board's actions. While Congress can veto laws dictated by the Board, or decisions made by the President, it has never actually done so.   The congress must vote 4/5 in favour in order to use it's veto, in order to prevent congress itself from gaining too much power. In practice, it is common for subsidiaries of the Board to have lobbyists in place in Congress for the sole purpose of preventing consensus.

Political Culture

  On average, PAC citizens value individual freedom above most other considerations, and generally look down on nations that curb individual freedoms in favour of collective benefits. PAC's mainstream political thought can be viewed along similar lines as old-American Libertarianism, viewing strong governments as antithetical to a free society, and believing that collective action only needs to be taken in the defence of freedom.   As a result, PAC is one of the most diverse cultural nations on Earth, with many peoples having migrated there or fled there in order to preserve their home cultures that may have been lost or assimilated over the previous centuries.   From the perspective of many PAC citizens, they do not have a government in a traditional sense. Civic Duty to them can be summarized as:

1. Elect citizens of high moral standing to sit in congress and curtail corporations if required;
2. Fight to defend the nation if they are called to war by congress; and
3. To otherwise not be involved or concerned with political affairs.

As such, the President and the Board are not so much legitmate supreme power, but are moreso the De Facto ruling authority based on their ownership of most functions of the society.

Background

  A Century of growing political disillusionment throughout the Americas from the late 20th to late 21st centuries, caused by repeated failures of elected governments to maintain living standards, resulted in voter turnout falling to as low as 15%-25% in many Western democracies. Meanwhile, magnates of still-growing corporations like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon, began to provide an increasing proportion of services once provided by government.   Need a package or letter delivered? Amazon has your back.   Need any technological help? Microsoft is there for you.   Worried about being robbed? Wal-Mart's Executive security services will respond much faster than the police!   Eventually, almost all of American society had been subsumed by corporations under the banner of "why trust the government, when your neighbours can do it better?". While still officially democratic states, many of the American nations slowly became privately managed, and elections would become more akin to consumer polls than actual delegations of power.  

Imperialism

  Throughout the late 21st Century, The United States of America would acquire "business expansion agreements" across North and South America. Many national governments, including Mexico, all of Central America, the Caribbean Islands, Colombia, Peru, and Chile entered into subsidiary status willingly (Or strongarmed by the corporations that now run most of their governments, depending on who you ask). However, American hegemony over all of the Americas was eventually established through hostile takeovers of Canada and the South American Alliance led by Brazil.

While not as advanced as Pacifica or Europa, PAC has robust domestic manufacturing sectors that focus primarily on mass-production of consumer goods. None of their domestic R&D has successfully beaten the rest of the world in any area, but they have mastered cost and resource efficiency. While far from a post-scarcity society, and despite severe income inequality, PAC goods are cheaper, easiest to use, and more widespread than any of their competitors. Their burgeoning population and massive manufacturing sector allows them to put more rifles in hands, ships in orbit, and food in mouths than any other nation.    Militarily, this puts PAC in the unenviable position of having a vast quantity of lesser quality tech and manpower, leading to their casualties being some of the highest during the Resource Wars.

The "Things" Basket of the World

  When every dollar counts, efficiency is the name of the game, and this is an area in which PAC corporations excel. The industrial output of the PAC would be staggering to the eyes of a person from the 20th century. This is so true that the idea of an industrial "district" is redundant to them, as all of their cities and settlements are production centres at their core. Fossil fuel refinement, consumer electronics, renewable energy generation, ballistic weaponry, shelf-stable foodstuffs, construction materials, inter-atmospheric aircraft, ground vehicles and hovercrafts, and even alcohol are among the sectors which PAC excels beyond its international peers.   PAC industry has reached the point where it has outstripped their pwm ability to produce the raw materials required to fuel it. As a result, PAC has put itself in a precarious position where they are dependant on the raw resource extraction of other nations to power it's own industry. On the one hand, few humans on Earth can say they don't own a "Made in the PAC" product, but on the other they have been forced to curtail their own imperialistic ambitions beyond their coastlines in favour of maintaining positive relations with their "Suppliers" (Other nations). While many of their "suppliers" wonder what the line is between customer and subsidiary, they can't deny the benefits it provides them and the advantage that access to such massive production has on their own economies.   

The Great American Dustbowl

  Perhaps their greatest economic weakness, PAC often struggles to produce enough food domestically to meet the needs of their population. Whether this is because food is seen as a prefferably minimized labour input rather than as a human desire is still up for debate. Regardless, much of PAC's territories have been made unsuitable for farming, and arable land is at a premium, mostly located closest to the poles where climate change has made previously frigid climates not worth fighting over into marginally arable farmland.

PAC utilizes the American Dollar ($) as their official currency, with monetary policy overseen by America Bank's representative on the Board. Also known as "PAC Dollars" or simply "Dollars", PAC currency is accepted widely across Earth and settled space, as PAC corporations accept only American dollars as their foreign medium of exchange. Due to the substantial amount of consumer-grade exports PAC boasts, this system effectively makes PAC the commercial hub of the globe during peacetimes, as all nations retain sizeable PAC Dollar reserves.