Well, the lady on NPR said the main official definition of a recession involves two consecutive quarters of declining economic, um, stuff.

So you really can't call it a recession (under that definition) until you see six months worth of data. Best case, where all the numbers pop up instantly and you have it all laid out on the computer so the calculations take you no time at all and the recession starts right on the quarter and not soemwhere in the middle, is that you can make the call after the recession has been going on for half a year. In this case, I hear it was seven months, which is actualy pretty prompt.