Confused by recent financial news? Well, me too. Turn to CNN, Bloomberg News, CNBC, take your pick and dreary eyed journalists inch us closer to a recession every doom and gloom word they speak. Now even your grandma is worried about the credit crunch and is packing baked beans and shotgun ammo in the basement. Cut to a commercial selling derivative annuities and 30 seconds later you’re told Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) are beating all profit expectations. This world just doesn’t make sense. Let see if our research pulls up any enticing insight.

So what does everyone do when their bank account runs red? Start saving? No silly, credit of course. There’s a reason why Visa and MasterCard execs receive 8 figure bonuses. They’ve successfully marketed everyone into thinking they need a credit card. The term, credit card and credit cards, tops our list with over 17,000 cumulative searches a day. Not all, but I suspect most are researching how they plan to pay for their next vacation, plasma screen TV or LV clutch. So while your neighbour’s mortgage is defaulting, the simple pleasures of urban glitter never escape your reach. But hang on.

What else does our research tell us? Surprise, the 4th highest search are people looking up queries related to bad credit. That tells a lot about our current financial situation doesn’t it. Somebody tell the Department of Education our high school finance class skipped this module. Hang on, that class doesn’t even exist.

No child left behind? No child left without credit is today’s slogan.

Epiar is an Edmonton-based internet market research and search engine optimization company. Please contact us for more information or to commission your own research reports.