PPC gets 15% of the clicks and 85% of the search budget. SEO gets 85% of the clicks but just 15% of the budget. Rand called this a disconnect, I saw it as an opportunity - SEOs are cheap. But now, it appears to be shrinking. Aaron Wall pointed out that paid search spending is down and SEO is up.

This can be explained in terms of simple psychological drivers. 

PPC is guaranteed traffic. There's no risk. You pay to play, but so long as you do pay, you will play. It's kind of like the rich out of shape guy who rents the soccer field my friends play on in the summer - he's garbage, but since he rents the place, he gets to play. PPC sells comfort.

SEO is pay-to-possibly-play. There's a risk you won't be able to get to page 1.  SEO sells hope. (Kinda like Jeff Lane, generally cool guy and SEM manager for Obama; he raked in donations for Obama like a bird collects twigs.)

Well, it doesn't quite matter what industry you're in, be it dating or affiliate marketing business-opportunity scams (*cough Google Cash/Dollars/Billions etc. cough*), during a recession. People are buying hope. They just got their homes foreclosed (probably your fault for ranking that sketchy mortgage company) and are looking to recover or improve.

At this point you're probably thinking, "OK, Gab, that's nice to know. Now what? How do I take action?"

1. Adapt your copy.
2. Target those whose risk-tolerances are greater, because they're the ones spending in a recession. 
3. Mine social media for problems that express a need for hope.  This can help you find new keywords or even entirely new markets.
4. Take my SEO blog and add the feed to your RSS reader ;). 
5. Comment about how your situation is hopeless and we'll see what can be done to help you sell hope :).