A skilled player is needed to take charge of the ball

In the olden days of football, less than 20 years ago, there was a skill, possessed by only a few priceless players, that has largely been forgotten. It was this: the ability to put a foot on the ball, calm the bedlam that was ensuing around him, and redirect play in a more fruitful way. Manchester United's Bobby Charlton had this ability, as did Pele, Glenn Hoddle and Michel Platini. Zinedine Zidane could do this, before he took up head-butting as a more insightful way to make an impact.

In the world of finance, this skill also seems to be a largely lost art. Alan Greenspan used to be able to still the markets with his gnomic sayings, but his successor at the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, does not have the same presence.

Barack Obama can sometimes make himself heard over the melee, but as he has the habit of saying two different things twice, in a rather repetitive rolling way, it is very hard to know exactly what he thinks.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the UN, cannot control the play as effectively as Ghana's Kofi Annan did. Some high-profile investors, notably George Soros and Mark Mobius, are occasionally able to pause and reflect, but even they seem caught up in the bustle, heard but hardly heeded.

David Cameron, the UK prime minister, is on a tour of the Middle East, but he seems more like one of those travellers who go on visits to slums in Mumbai or favelas in Rio de Janeiro on their gap year. Yes Dave, you have seen Tahrir Square. Now what does it mean?

With trading now taking place around the world throughout the day and night, seldom has the need for somebody to put a foot on the ball been as great as in the past few days. Turmoil in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, and now the uprising in Libya, must be making investors from Tokyo to New York ask the same simple question: what is going on in the Middle East?

The problem they face is whom to ask. Economic commentators are trying to make sense of all the indicators, while the market is taking its own direction. The result has been fairly predictable. Oil has soared. Stock markets have tanked, with more than US$1.2 trillion (Dh4.4tn) wiped out since last Friday, according to Bloomberg News.

Normally you might expect the dollar also to benefit from uncertainty, as it did in the autumn of 2008, but this time around, that hasn't happened, maybe because traders know that when oil goes up, the dollar goes down. It fell even against sterling, for heaven's sake.

The Middle East seems pretty evenly split between those countries that have protesters at every roundabout and those that are either well governed or can afford to spend money on subsidies and job-creation schemes.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia returned home on Wednesday and announced a package of measures worth $36 billion. The country can afford it: with the price of oil surging, he could probably afford to be more generous. The measures he announced include a 15 per cent pay rise for public-sector workers and financial aid for students and the unemployed. He is also creating 300 jobs in the Royal Court to "communicate with citizens and find out their needs".

John Sfakianakis, the chief economist at Banque Saudi Fransi, wrote in a note on Wednesday: "Jump-starting private-sector job creation will be the key to resolving the unemployment dilemma. Currently, only one out of every 10 employees working for a Saudi private-sector company is a Saudi citizen. The public sector can no longer act as the employer of last resort for Saudis. Saudi Arabia has to exit from the comfort zone of offering low-paid and low-incentive public-sector employment."

Or as people in Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign were fond of saying: "It's the economy, stupid." It is fairly obvious what citizens want the world over: jobs, houses, education and a stable environment. What they don't want is oppression and, perhaps worst of all, inflation. Germans still recoil in horror at the thought of having to take a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. It is the reason they fear putting the European Central Bank in the hands of an Italian, however well-intentioned or qualified he might be.

Where does this end? Inflation could be good for Dubai's property market, although there is still a drastic oversupply in the sector. What is also needed is a period of calm. Apparently there is talk of Tunisian-style protests in China, taking place every Sunday in 12 cities. Someone, somewhere, needs to put a foot on the ball.