The first thing I noticed was the obvious absence of George Washington. He came from average means to start an extremely successful career in surveying, eventually making heaps of money. He served in the British army, was distinguished in battle, and retired to a life of farming and distilling until a certain Revolution, which he was most responsible for winning. Oh, and he was the first (and some argue best) president of the United States.

Second, where is Bill Gates? He was a college dropout, for Pete's sake, and he went on to become the richest man on Earth. He doesn't quite fit the tone of the list, since his parents made good money and he lived comfortably during his youth, but cmon, making 50 billion dollars through his own hard work counts for that.

@sigh: actually, "government handouts" in the sense of a strong social safety net actually facilitate social mobility, a metric the US scores very low in, I'm sorry to say.

I don't think 'I'll Be Missing You' (the title of which hints at the original lyrics) would have been a success without Sting's 'input' and don't get me started on 'Kashmir'