What is a recession?

You ask: What recession?

Tribe trades slow down everywhere at once, moon after moon — that is recession. Whole camp economy is loop: Caveman buy spear from spear maker, spear maker buy hides from hide tribe, hide tribe buy Caveman's fish. When people get scared — maybe prices jumped, maybe borrowing got costly — they buy less. Spear maker sell less, so let helpers go. Jobless helpers buy even less. Fear feed fear, loop spin down. Counters say: when whole land's making-and-trading shrink two seasons in row, call it recession. Not one bad hunt — many trades falling together. But most such slow-downs pass in about ten moons — painful, but not forever. To fix, money chiefs cut borrowing cost, tribe chiefs spend on big works, until buying spin loop up again. Cave wisdom: recession is whole tribe sitting on shells at same time — spending is what feed everyone.