Actually, if you want to get technical, the original set of recession indicators included more than negative growth- IE, you could have a recession w/o negative growth (but certainly not with any reasonable growth). If I remember my economics correctly, the 'recession is defined as 2 quarters of negative growth' was a simplification, and its also how some other countries strictly define it.

There is a Bureau somewhere in the US I believe that is actually who determines if we are technically in recession, and that is what goes in the books.

Given the astronomical rise in food and transportation prices that are not included in official inflation calculations, and given the rise in m2, m3 inflation, and given that just about any sector of the economy that is NOT getting a pip from the weak dollar is in decline, and given the astronomical drop in household wealth via the housing crisis.... Any attempt to say we are not in deep trouble is trying to put lipstick on the pig, at best, and borders on outright dishonesty at worst.

Yeti