Got a chicken in your pot?

Dow Plunges As Crude Tops $139
Jobless Rate Leaps to 3 1/2 Year High in May
Job Losses Confirm Sense of an Economy in Trouble
Wall Street Tumbles After Jobs Data, Oil
Businesses Shed 49,000 Jobs in May, 324,000 So Far This Year

--Random headlines spotted on June 6, 2008

Hoover easily won the 1928 Republican nomination for President. His platform rejected farm subsidies, supported prohibition, pledged lower taxes, and promised more of the same prosperity Americans had enjoyed during the Coolidge years. Hoover’s opponent in the presidential race would be Democrat Al Smith of New York, a Catholic who railed against Prohibition. Smith was a distinct underdog, however. His religion and his anti-prohibition position alienated many southern Democrats, a key constituency in the party. Hoover, on the other hand, was an extremely attractive candidate, the man who would help Americans attain new levels of prosperity -- or, as a 1928 Republican slogan claimed, put “a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage.” On election day, Hoover won an overwhelming victory, claiming more than 58 percent of the vote.

--Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia

Prosperity is just around the corner.

--Herbert Hoover

"We're beginning to see signs that the stimulus may be working," Bush said at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

--MSNBC 6-6-08

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

--Karl Marx