“Technical recession” Political Con Trick?

"Technical recession" paleo-spin from 1967.

The concept of "technical recession" has always struck me as a bit odd.  It doesn't seem particularly useful as an analytical tool – for example, an economy experiencing sequential quarterly results of -2.0%, +0.1%, -2.0%, +0.1% is not doing well but at no stage in the year would it be in "technical recession". 

It also has the drawback of focusing commentary and political argument on whether or not an economy meets the technical definition of recession.  Recently we had the odd and counterintuitive result that commentators seemed to be saying that avoiding technical recession was somehow a political win for the Government.  It is that to some extent but only because of the odd threshold already set by the technical definition.  The Government itself is presumably aware that 0.1% growth (even when compared to other countries) is not really champagne cork popping territory (especially when taking account of all the data, for example on business investment, that has been the subject of debate).

Of course, commentators are not fools – in the example in the first paragraph above, they would quickly point out that in any meaningful sense the economy was going backwards and would reject the technical definition.  But in this case why bother with it in the first place?

In light of my bemusement, I was happy when I found an article about Peter Jay claiming that Art Okun invented the concept in 1967 so that Lyndon Johnson could put a positive spin on bad economic news – it's here. 

My question then is whether anyone can come up with a reason why this notion is useful, despite its spinnish origins, and why we should not want to see it dropped from the commentators' took kit, or at the very least make a resolution never to take it seriously.

Before retiring, John Hannoush used to work at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He is currently a research scholar at the ANU dong an MPhil thesis on an Australian-Lebanese poet, Na'im Khoury. Since retiring he has also done some occasional political consultancy.