Every time I see the word ‘mild’ next to the word ‘recession,’ I cringe, and you should too.

Economists endlessly describe the 2001 recession as mild, meaning that the economy didn’t contract much at all in terms of real gross domestic product, or GDP. Same with the previous downturn in the early 1990s. Today, there’s a lot of debate as to the how deep the current downturn (if that’s where we are) will be, and there’s no shortage of mild assessments.

Remember, this is all purely in terms of GDP. These judgments largely ignore the part of the economy that matters most to most people: the job market.

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So there I am, in the CNBC studio early this AM, ready to weigh in on the recent swoon in global financial markets, when they break in with an emergency statement by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in support of a quick stimulus package to jumpstart growth.

He does his thing, and I’m ready to start playing some of my own chin music, when the Fed jumps in with their own emergency news: a rare, big inter-meeting rate cut: they took the Federal Funds Rate down three-quarters of a percentage point, and did so without waiting for their scheduled meeting later this month.

Other than the fact that I spent a lot more time in the studio than I expected to, what does it all mean?

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