The Economy is like a Mexican Standoff

I was trying to find a way to describe the current U.S. economic situation simply, and what I came up with was a Mexican standoff. You could just call it a stalemate, except I when I think of a Mexican standoff I usually think of buffoonish characters, like those below. And that seems more accurate in this case.

The way I see it, the cartoon summarizes the essential problem. Business is saying, “We won’t hire you unless you spend more” and consumers are saying “We won’t spend more unless you hire us.”

So we have got a situation where Republicans are trying to lower business taxes and regulations in effort to influence businesses to invest, and the Obama administration is trying to stimulate demand by giving citizens and businesses more money so they can spend it.  The problem is, both sides are fighting about it so neither approach is getting done.