The good thing about being an adult is you get to make your own decisions. The bad thing? You get to make your own decisions - and live with the consequences.

Two years ago, financial services firms tested a pandemic scenario that began with a few flu cases and ended in a workplace absenteeism rate as high as 50%. There was also a breakdown in basic services, resulting in garbage piling up on the streets. The premise -- a worse-case senario designed to stress the response -- was that the World Health Organization (WHO) had reached alert phase 5, a pandemic, and escalated from there.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is increasingly concerned about a quickly developing swine flu outbreak, with eight cases now in California and Texas, and hundreds more in Mexico.