Even as the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its preliminary GDP growth estimate for the second quarter—down at an annualized rate of 0.9%, which is better than the -1.6% in Q1—the takes came in hot as befits a world struggling with climate change.

"There absolutely is not a recession yet," came from some quarters, while others noted that, no way to know yet, but maybe one has already started.

It's the economic equivalent of the "who's on top?" guessing game in politics. And the trigger is the incorrect notion that two quarters of declining GDP growth is the definition of a recession, which it isn't. That assumption was put into motion on Sunday, December 1, 1974 in a New York Times op-ed by Julius Shiskin, a commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who offered the concept as a  "rough translation" of how the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which makes the official call on U.S. recessions, undertakes its qualitative analysis of the economy.