An attempt to reconcile both views by comparing it to a structural collapse of, let’s say, a bridge.

In the end, it collapses. Before that, the cracks begin to show. Before that, invisible micro-cracks form. Before that, pressure exceeds limits.

Now, at which point in this story does “collapse happen”? Some use this to refer to the actual collapse, after the cracks began to show.

But since collapse is inevitable after too many micro-cracks have formed (or maybe even earlier, since those are already symptoms of an underlying cause), some refer to this long, unspectacular build-up phase as “collapse happens”.

I’m neither an economist nor a civil engineer. Bridges are complex, economies even more so. I still think these two views explain how the same term can refer to different things, or different phases of the same thing.