Lawrence Summers, Director of the White House's National Economic Council, said today “Today everyone agrees that the recession is over.”

Well, I don't agree.

Oh, I can hear a few of you. “You don't understand, Kent. A recession is an objectively defined thing. It has a technical definition and the objective criteria have been met.” Perhaps so. But that's my point. If the definition is such that we can now conclude the recession is over, then the word isn't the one the news media should be reporting on. My concern is that, as a public, we aren't managing the terminology. We are allowing government and big business to do it, the same people who are telling us that the health care system is not broken.

Why do we even care about recessions? So what if there's such a term—are we just such nerds that we define arbitrary criteria about the market and pass them back and forth as trivia? I hope not. We attach names to qualitative assessments like “recession” because we expect these terms to tell us something useful about things. Recessions are bad. Booms are good. And we also need terms we can use in conversation. Conversation between real people, not between bankers. “How about that recession?” “Damn that recession.” People who have been laid off and can't find employment don't need to hear that our troubles are over. They need to hear that we know they're still hurting.

And so I'm sure this term “recession” is useful to someone, but if it's going to have this dorky techno-meaning that isn't measuring anything that real people feel I think we should demand another word, another bit of terminology. If people think the recession is over, then clearly recession is not measuring the thing I, at least, want to be talking about.

Presidents are always creating new departments and offices to manage things of public interest like Homeland Security or Consumer Credit. How would it be if we asked President Obama to create an Office of Using Terminology and Measures That Aren't So Removed From Reality That They're Actively Offensive. Ok, so I need to work on the title.

But seriously. If we're out of the recession, but things are not better for regular people, we need terminology that reflects this. We can't have Congress and bankers and health care execs and even our President losing focus on just how bad it is for some people. So, ok, we're not in a recession. Great. How about “shit storm”? I admit it's an offensive term—frankly, I hate it when people use language like that. But as Dennis Knight noted in one of his posts, sometimes swearing is necessary to communicate what we're feeling.

I think a crude term like this would really help to make news reports clearer. Instead of saying “Good news today: the recession is over” the news anchors could be encouraged to instead admit “Mixed news today: Those in the elite, ruling class will be thrilled to know that the recession is over, but unfortunately regular work-a-day folks can expect to remain without power indefinitely as we continue to experience the longest shit storm in American history.”

In fact, what I'd really like is not just new terminology but a focus on measuring new things. We have some pretty terrible metrics for measuring things. We accept unemployment figures that are based on who's drawing unemployment even though unemployment benefits run out and the person goes off the radar just because the government is no longer helping. That person is still unemployed but not being counted. And we count as re-employed someone who has a job of any kind, even if it's not paying what it was before. We need to do a better job of coming up with descriptions that really explain what's going on. The new Office of Using Terminology and Measures That Aren't So Removed From Reality That They're Actively Offensive could help with that, too.

Indeed, I can think of all kinds of good things that office could do. It seems like every day I hear some politician making an absurd claim about Americans wanting this or that. No one knows what Americans want because we never ask them. Heaven forbid we should actually put something on a ballot or a tax form that allowed us to check a box saying “I want universal health care” or “I want a public option in health insurance” or “I'm pro-choice.” Instead, we have a national policy of “don't ask, just tell” where our ignorance on what people really want becomes a justification for anyone to claim anything they want with no concern about being rebutted. “Polls?” our legislators ask mockingly, “The only poll I care about is at the ballot box.” But since candidates and issues aren't separated when voting, it's harder than it sounds to separate out what people want.

Government will never be reformed as long as entrenched politicians and special interests are allowed to control the words we use and the measurements we choose to take. We need to take back control of how we talk about what government's duty is and of how well government is accomplishing that duty.