It's not recursion in the sense that it calls itself. However, it does divide the problem into smaller (though explicitly defined) chunks, which is still recurs

It's not recursion in the sense that it calls itself. However, it does divide the problem into smaller (though explicitly defined) chunks, which is still recursion. You could state it that the multiple by a power of two is the sum of the multiples of one order of magnitude base 2 lower.