There are less silly ways to push back against the utility of established terminology. I enjoy Sean O'Malley as a combat athlete, but his insistence that he has

There are less silly ways to push back against the utility of established terminology. I enjoy Sean O'Malley as a combat athlete, but his insistence that he has an unblemished record is, at best, an amusing quirk of his public persona. Nobody but him takes that claim seriously, and I'd respect him more if I learned he doesn't either. What is happening now looks like a reversal of the trend that saw a growing average GDP per Capita coupled with a shrinking median GDP per Capita. The economy is contacting, but the man on the street is seeing a bigger piece of it. Most would agree that's on balance good thing. But calling it not a recession avoids the awkward conversation of how we hid the opposite trend with an over reliance on GDP size.