Does anyone that works for Ma Jones actually look at the site before you publish this stuff?

Kind of makes you look like an offender when you follow every blog with a story about Radiohead.

Nothing wrong with writing about Radiohead, if that's all you can do, but if you want to lament the fact that Americans prefer cupcakes and puppies to economic info, then don't follow stories about Wall Street with a recipe for puppy-shaped cupcakes... smart, fearless cupcakes though they be.

Nice job, Stein. I guess I'm supposed to assume that average americans just don't care enough about the issues to take time away from searching for sex and wizards. What a bunch of ignorant, proletariat slobs . . .

But wait! Maybe Americans don't search google for news of the financial crisis because Google news has not one but THREE links to stories about it. Why would anyone type in the phrase "financial crisis" when you have your choice of links? Every time you turn on the TV, you hear about the bailout; there is simply no need to type a phrase into google to learn about a ridiculously hot-button issue! In no way, shape or form is this statistical finding a reasonable proxy for Americans' interest levels in the financial crisis.

mjameson writes: Why would anyone type in the phrase "financial crisis" when you have your choice of links?

Right.

It's not like the news of the financial crisis is hidden, and we have to dig to find it.

The searches for puppy dogs & sex toys probably demonstate a need for relief from the depressing news of the financial crisis!

It's true, why would you google "financial crisis"? Presumably, anyone who cares already prefers some given media outlet, and it's being heavily covered in every media outlet so far as I can tell.

Meanwhile, if I have a query about wizards or cupcakes, I might need to do some digging, there's nothing in today's NYT about it.

Look at the level of 'Financial Crisis' searches before September 14th.

Nobody but Ron Paul was talking about it then.

Not the Democrats.

Not the Republicans.

Not the Media (Mainstream OR Mother Jones variety).

Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention until events proved Dr. Paul to be correct, and now, of course, they'd all like to pretend that Dr. Paul never even tried to draw their attention to the problem that was so obvious to him, and all who refused to wear the blinders. It would amount to an admission of malfeasance on the part of all those entities. But if the shoe fits...

It's because they are all searching for the term "bailout". 5x the cupcakes rate

http://www.google.com/trends?q=bailout%2C+financial+crisis%2C+cupcakes&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2008-9&sort=0

Roll Out the Barrel. We’ll All Have Barrels of Funds

Solid business used to be the goal. Today, running the show into the sewer and begging for a handout is the game. With auditing practices complex enough to fool the fox in the hen house, with CEOs who let the dice roll instead of maintaining a safety valve for investors and stock holders, we’re “led” to the alters, the wars, the echoes in the mall and the silence between national drumbeats so thin the music doesn’t even play.

The loan sharks are in the bedroom. Its din din for Jesus and the cash. This Wallow Land of epistemic opacity and eulogistic sound bytes, runs up the tab, bears arms for oil, or sits under the Congressional flagpole waiting for the next job, the next hurricane, the next foreclosure, the next shoe to drop from Uncle Sam’s never ending slog to corporate victory.

What an orgy. Create the crisis. Demand payback for years of economic polymorphic perversion. Streamline the hedge funds with no promise of return. Add Presidential power at the Congressional Dance Hall this week. We’ll hold our breath while the global financiers pant for more. In this flushed out game of drop the soap, perhaps a worldly body condom is in order.

Even more important (118x) than cupcakes or wizards: iphone. What does that tell us about the Google public?