[expat_panama]

There won't really be a recession until the 4th quarter numbers are in, in January

We no longer need two consecutive negative quarters; in fact this current officially designated recession is seeing an expanding gdp.   Here are the BEA figures from their site:

US GDP	current $B	chained $B
2007	13,510.90	11,357.80
II	13,737.50	11,491.40
III	13,950.60	11,625.70
IV	14,031.20	11,620.70
2008	14,150.80	11,646.00
II	14,294.50	11,727.40
III	14,412.80	11,712.40

[KarlInOhio]

in fact this current officially designated recession is seeing an expanding gdp.

You have to adjust for inflation, otherwise you could print stacks of money, devalue the currency and pretend that more stuff is being produced rather than less just because the dollars have one more zero at the end than they did last month. The second column adjusts for inflation. The drop from Q2 to Q3 is 0.13%. If you multiply that by four you get the quoted annual rate of -0.5%.