If you'll indulge my "typical British bitter rant"... Describing the personality of a nation is no more meaningful than saying all black people / christians / men / women have the same personality. If anything, describing a nation as one makes even less sense than these due to the much greater heterogeneity of the population you're describing. Certainly lots of British people end up working in pushbutton, turnkey jobs. A subset of these end up in McDonalds, Starbucks, WalMart and other franchises; this type of worker is just as much the foundation of your (American) economy as ours (British). There will always be plenty of similar jobs and plenty of people to fill them in any nation you choose to name. Speaking as a Brit, when I see a Roller drive past, I conform to your stereotype and accept that I'll almost certainly never own one; I will never be rich. But does this make me a bitter failure? I am a research scientist working on new cancer therapies. A life in academic research virtually guarruntees that I'll never afford that car but it does mean that every day I advance the field of human knowlege and bring a treatment for cancer sufferers one tiny step closer. The author of the article linked to above defines me as a moron and a failure and you may agree, but I'm pretty damn happy about where I am and where I'm going. Some people define success by money earned or cars bought; my success is measured by new discoveries and respect earned from my peers; I can't speak for Reynolds but I imagine he gets a kick out of all those lives he saves. I spent a while working in dead-end jobs to pay for university, and the people I met either genuinely enjoyed their jobs (especially in customer service jobs) or saw it simply as a way to fund whatever they wanted out of life. There's no need to be so insulting simply because we haven't chosen the same criteria as you have. I'm not sure if you actually intended to be rude in your post, but that's how I read it. Either way, there's no need to upset each other... have a cup of tea and relax :).