We all know the feeling: you can sense you are starting to come down with something. The question is how ill you are actually going to get. Will it stop at a slightly sore throat, or are you heading for a few days in bed? Will a throat sweet do the trick, or are you going to need something stronger?
It happened to me last week. I had felt it coming on for several days and thought I was going to get away with just a mildly sore throat. Except that, over the weekend, I twisted my knee and that mildly sore throat has now turned into a full-blown cold. Not that I am staying home, of course. That simply is not in my vocabulary. I am carrying on, albeit at a limp, perhaps doing a bit more office work to give that knee some rest.
The world economy is suffering from much the same thing: The war in the Middle East began like a mildly sore throat, expected to be over quickly. Now, four weeks later, we are in serious trouble. Wrong diagnosis, wrong treatment. And now the doctor is no longer quite so sure how ill we are really going to get or what medicine to prescribe.
