Costly Metaphors

Using metaphors to describe the current economic crisis is necessary to explain to the layperson what is going on. The first metaphor I heard used was by Warren Buffett on Charlie Rose - the economy is like a patient whose heart stopped. We need to pump money into the credit markets to get his heart beating again. Worry about all else later. Another metaphor used here is that the economic crisis is like a car wreck and the government is just trying to clear the wreckage off the road to get traffic moving again. But the author suggests another metaphor: the government is causing worse congestion with all their emergency vehicles.

And I can see their points. There's no use it talking about a patients eating habits (spending habits) when his/her body is in cardiac arrest - even if those are what got him there.

But a country/economy isn't the same thing as a body. It doesn't die. It evolves and changes over time into something else. And so I wonder if some of these metaphors are misleading - because at least with the patient one - it paints a picture of having no choice whatsoever...which is exactly the opposite of what economics is all about - a science that teaches us there are always choices and costs to those choices.