Bill Mann

Fool. Chief Investment Strategist, Motley Fool Asset Management. Delusions of adequacy. North Carolinian. #LGRW #HWTL

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

Why did the British Library reinstate Oscar Wilde’s library card in 2025, 125 years after his death? My latest insight. https://t.co/9aakrB8PZ1

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@LUFC1992_v2 This is the Lord’s work. 🍻

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@YIMBYman I’m happy to go to MLS games but there is so little riding on each one due to more than half the league qualifying for the playoffs.

The MLS put itself behind a paywall, threatens to move even successful clubs and wonders why fan interest has plateaued.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@CoffeeBlackMD This was — until the end — our experience as well. Our son loved soccer but technical development is an afterthought in the US model. It’s all about winning games.

There were kids who were game-winners at every age. No one developed as they might have.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@ThatLondonLady @England @FIFAWorldCup Yes, right here. American. Fell in love with watching Paul Gascoigne in the 1990 World Cup and have supported England ever since.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@C_S_Skeptic @balogun @KingJames Let’s just hope he doesn’t have to endure the career long ridicule that Thierry Henry received after the Hand of Frog game in 2009!

Oh wait…

Selective outrage is so cute.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@RPSeawright Yes, the people who are suggesting that the UEFA clubs withdraw from FIFA have not really spent much time contemplating the nature of UEFA.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

I was at an Irish bar in Paris for the Hand of Frog match in 2009.

Everyone at the bar agreed that it was magnanimous and sporting when France allowed Ireland to score to make up for such a blatant misjustice. Also everyone was relieved that nothing was riding on the outcome.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@CRMartinMD Of course they did and beside the point.

That there have been other terrible decisions in the past doesn’t somehow negate or excuse this one.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

I tend to reflexively support institutions that are strong enough to withstand political influence, which means that I've essentially been pissed off for most of this century.

Infantino's reign at FIFA cannot end soon enough. He is corrupt to the core.

[Mikhail Khodorkovsky @khodorkovsky_en]

A fuel crisis keeps spreading across Russia.

I ran the country's largest oil company. Let me explain what is actually happening — and why the Kremlin cannot stop it. 🧵[1/12]

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@KyleDion Abel Riba would be very proud today.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@BloozEXTRA @S3ALES @MARKELLIOTT_NJ Imagine not understanding the reserve currency system.

(And yes, that air display was awesome.)

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

The World Cup has been an absolute godsend for @3YearLetterman.

Hall of Fame/World Champion level stuff here from the “Americans don’t understand banter” crowd.

[Emma @WhatTheForkAVFC]

Besides the fact they actually believe they won us both world wars.. I’ll bite. It’s more like, Great Britain here’s:

Cement: by British bricklayer and stonemason Joseph Aspdin in 1824.

The World Wide Web: Proposed in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN.

The Telephone: in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell.

Television: The first working mechanical TV by John Logie Baird in 1925.

The Bicycle: Kirkpatrick Macmillan around 1839

The Steam Engine: Developed by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 and famously refined by James Watt in 1765, powering the Industrial Revolution.

Modern Computing: Pioneered by Charles Babbage in the 1830s, followed by Tommy Flowers' code-breaking Colossus computer in 1943.

Penicillin: Discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928.

The Jet Engine: Sir Frank Whittle in 1930.

IVF: Robert Edwards, Patrick Steptoe and Jean Purdy with the world’s first IVF baby born in 1978.

The Photocopier: James Watt in 1779

Plastic: Alexander Parkes invented the first man-made (thermoplastic), known as Parkensine, in Birmingham in 1856.

I could go on, but you get the point. You can brag about 1776 all you like, call us what you like, but you don’t get to minimise us x

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@benarchibald Thank you?

Also maybe wonder a little if your banter detector doesn’t savvy American English.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@lhamtil Yeah but in Euchre the Bauer is pretty powerful.

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@_kjs1874 That is COOL. Thanks for posting it!

[Greg Lukianoff @glukianoff]

I’ve always found people who bristle at “American exceptionalism” kind of… weird. Not because I lack self-awareness — I’ve spent my career cataloging every way this country fails to live up to its own rules. But that’s exactly why I love it so damn much. We built a system designed to be shamed by its own founding documents, and it still delivered one of the most spectacular, world-altering runs in human history. A genuine force for human flourishing.

I also found the argument against American exceptionalism to be historically illiterate. Here’s a sample of what we were first at:

• The first large-scale democratic republic in human history — not a city-state, not a monarchy with a parliament bolted on, but a bold continental experiment in self-rule, popular sovereignty, and ordered liberty.

• A written Constitution (1789) with separation of powers and checks & balances — still the oldest national constitution in force anywhere.

• The Bill of Rights (1791): the first time a nation wrote “the government cannot touch these” into supreme law and actually meant it. A dare the world copied — from later rights charters to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

• Public land-grant universities and mass higher education (Morrill Act), opening college to ordinary people no aristocracy would have let near the gates. (but don’t get me started about what happened after we started. Massively federally funding it.)

• Kitty Hawk, 1903 — first controlled powered flight.

• The Moon, 1969 — still the only ones who’ve been there.

• The world’s largest economy since ~1890, powering unprecedented prosperity through grit and genius.

• The assembly line, skyscraper, transistor, personal computer, ARPANET — the backbone of the modern world.

• Telephone, phonograph, GPS — connecting and powering daily life.

• Surgical anesthesia, polio vaccine — saving and transforming millions of lives.

• Jazz, blues, rock ‘n’ roll — brand new American art forms that conquered the globe.

• Hollywood’s dreams, blue jeans, bourbon, and a culture so open a kid like me could devour sushi, burritos, stuffed cabbage, and tabouli in the same week and rightfully think of it all as American.

That’s the part that fills me with genuine love and pride: not just the power or the wins, but the appetite for freedom, creativity, and reinvention. The audacity to say “We the People” and keep trying to live up to it.

What do you love most about this truly exceptional country? 🇺🇸

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

@glukianoff I admire the American attitude toward risk and failure.

In this country there is admiration for people who take risks and fail. No stigmatization, just “what are you going to try next?”

[Bill Mann @TMFOtter]

This is the kind of pettiness I can get behind.

[Politics Global @PolitlcsGlobal]

🚨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 NEW: Greggs will remove its three Mexican sandwiches from sale tomorrow ahead of England’s game against Mexico on Monday morning

[@benhoobs]

[Politics Global @PolitlcsGlobal]

🚨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 NEW: Greggs will remove its three Mexican sandwiches from sale tomorrow ahead of England’s game against Mexico on Monday morning

[@benhoobs]