I'm a cow

For those new to my favorite game, called "Crisis Watching on the Blogs," I'll list some entry points. Now don't worry--they all link to each other. You can enter anywhere.

You'll find that, because this is about crisis watching, most of the players are Bears.

Take Noel Roubini. He's not just any bear--he's a Dark Black Bear. No matter how dark your outlook, his is darker.

I must warn you: this sells, and to capture the revenue, Dark Black Bear has an irritating blog site.

But just try avoiding his blog site! You'll last an hour. He sets the agenda. He is crystal clear. And he was right when I was wrong.

I do sometimes wonder whether by issuing dark prophesies he knows will be amplified through the blogs he can act upon our financial future, guaranteeing that he'll be right.

Then I think, nah. If that were possible, Bernanke would do it. We'd have no crisis.

(Though sometimes I do totter back into superstition and think, won't it be a glorious day when Noel Roubini finally wakes up in a good mood? My guava tree will have euros growing on it!)

Paul Krugman is Grizzly Bear. He gets mean when discussing Republicans.

And mean also seems to sell. Ask The New York Times.

But hell, he gives me access to his brain. Only a generous man could be the teacher that he is.

Brad Setser is Little Unassuming Bear. Though on Black Bear's site he looks like a Little Bull.

Setser is so appealing, so modest and unassuming next to Haughty Bears just described, he makes you want to read line after gory line of forensic tracking down of missing Middle Eastern billions of international reserves.

I'm teasing him. His is wonderful stuff, imperative reading , and holder of links to all other imperative reading.

He steered me, for example, to Professor EconBrowser Bear, who is actually Two Bears. Siamese Twin Bears. I say this because I read them for months before realizing that they were Two Different Bears.

I sometimes get to wondering, who am I in this game? Am I Pooh Bear? (she says modestly because she's from the midwest). Because, when pondering financial crises, I do sometimes feel like a Bear of Little Brain.

But then I think, wait a minute--I'm no bear at all. In the TransEconomics base scenario, all creatures great and small emerge safely out of the woods later on this year. (Of course I also have alternative scenarios, with probabilities assigned to them. Perhaps I'm Professionally Cautious Bear. Or Wimpy Bear.)

I guess this makes me a Bull. But with all my estrogen?

I'm a cow.