In the coming weeks, we'll be rolling out a blog on Newsweek.com, and a column in the print magazine. My Slate "Moneybox" column will appear as per usual on Slate, as well as on Newsweek.com.

Please come find me there!

Some highlights:

He examines several booms and busts—the stock market in the 1920’s, the bursting real-estate bubble today, in addition to the railroads, the telegraph and fiber optics—to show us what they share. In the hands of a less amusing writer, this could make for sober reading. But Mr. Gross attacks his subject with such vigor and so many cultural references (how often do you find “dork-powered,” “tristesse” and “algorithms” in the same paragraph?) that you’d be excused for thinking you were reading about Britney Spears rather than Alan Greenspan. And occasionally, you actually are: A Britney quote­—“Oops! … I did it again”—opens the book.

In any case, so upbeat is the author about the silver lining to economic disaster that it’s hard to resist crossing your fingers and hoping that the next bubble bursts while you’re still around to enjoy it.

He’s particularly fine in explaining the dot-com debacle of the late 90’s, hobbled by dial-up technology, and how it paved the wave for the burgeoning cable/DSL Internet economy whose potential we’re only starting to tap today. He argues that it’s precisely all that unused fiber-optic cable left lying around, more a function of dreamy American aspiration than tough-minded necessity, that paves the way for grand innovation and unlimited growth. That’s why, time and again, we leave Europe in the dust. He believes American exceptionalism will stand us well into the 21st century, even as nations like China—the dictionary definition of excess capacity—“may also adopt the American habit of making the best of our bubbles.”

Les bulles spéculatives jalonnent l'histoire économique et financière des Etats-Unis. Du télégraphe au chemin de fer au XIXe siècle, en passant par la Bourse à la fin des années 1920, l'Internet il y a moins d'une décennie, l'immobilier hier, et demain les énergies renouvelables.

Ces éruptions spéculatives sont pour partie le reflet des caractéristiques de la société américaine : son optimisme et son enthousiasme un peu naïfs pour les nouvelles technologies, son culte de l'entrepreneur et du "self made man", sa tolérance pour l'appât du gain.

Inévitablement, l'"exubérance irrationnelle", pour reprendre l'expression célèbre en 1996 d'Alan Greenspan, alors président de la Réserve fédérale, enrichit vite les uns et tourne à la catastrophe pour les autres. L'éclatement des bulles s'apparente souvent à un désastre, avec pour conséquences des récessions, comme en 1929 ou en 2001, du chômage, des crises financières et de multiples scandales.

Dans un livre provocateur, Pop ! Why Bubbles are Great for the Economy ("Plop ! Pourquoi les bulles sont excellentes pour l'économie"), l'économiste et journaliste Daniel Gross, collaborateur notamment du New York Times et du magazine en ligne Slate, entend démontrer l'utilité des bulles, ou au moins de certaines d'entre elles, dans le processus de destruction créative. . . .

Some choice quotes:

But could it be that the cassandras have it all wrong and that bubbles are actually a blessing, not a curse? This is the heretical idea advanced in a provocative book, Pop! Why Bubbles are Great for the Economy, which sketches out a history of the bubbles that have swept through America over the past 150 years. . . . an entertaining primer on market madness. . . thoroughly accessible to a broad audience. . . But brutal or not, Gross’s thesis is a thought-provoking one for modern investors, particularly given that the bubble phenomenon shows no sign of disappearing.

In recent months, policy makers and business groups have argued that post-Enron regulatory burdens have made U.S. markets less competitive -- citing as proof the many foreign companies that list their shares in London instead of New York.

Now, three academic pioneers in the field are casting doubt on the assertion.

In a new study, they conclude there is no evidence the much-criticized 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which beefed up corporate accounting and financial disclosures, among other things, increased London's appeal to foreign companies at New York's expense. The study looked at thousands of companies that either listed, or didn't list, their stocks on various U.S. and London markets from 1990 to 2005.

The research also found that investors are still willing to pay a sizable premium for foreign-company shares listed in the U.S., in return for meeting tough U.S. regulatory standards. Foreign-company stocks in London receive no similar premium, they said.

The researchers also say the decline in new foreign listings on U.S. stock markets since 2001 isn't due to regulatory overkill. Rather, today there are simply fewer foreign companies that fit the historic profile for listing abroad: namely, larger, faster growing and less indebted companies from countries with stronger legal protections.

Financial investors can plunge into a new exotic derivative on Tuesday when for the first time the Fish Pool exchange in Norway will offer cleared futures contracts for fresh salmon.

The move highlights the increasing sophistication of the salmon industry, which is one of the most industrialised seafood sectors.

Coming up next month: forward puts on sesame bagels, and swaps on chive cream cheeses.

I was happiest when I was all alone — and it was very late at night, and I was walking up the hill after having helped to put The Sun to bed.

All the other university people, teachers and students alike, were asleep. They had been playing games all day long with what was known about real life. They had been repeating famous arguments and experiments, and asking one another the sorts of hard questions real life would be asking by and by.

We on The Sun were already in the midst of real life. By God, if we weren’t! We had just designed and written and caused to be manufactured yet another morning newspaper for a highly intelligent American community of respectable size — yes, and not during the Harding administration, either, but during 1940, ’41 and ’42, with the Great Depression ending, and with World War Two well begun.

I am an atheist, as some of you have gleaned from my writings. But I have to tell you that, as I trudged up the hill so late at night and all alone, I knew that God Almighty approved of me.

Oh, and about that meme, repeated from the Federal Reserve to Wall Street to CNBC, that the subprime woes are not indicative of any larger credit issues? Not so much. Apparently, the Alt-a sector -- the notch between subprime and prime -- is having some difficulties. Now check out this chart showing subprime casualty Novastar and alt-a casualty American Home Mortgage. I'm no technical analyst, but it sure likes like the subprime company's stock is leading the alt-a company's stock down.