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04 April 2025
Inventions in Everything: A Bat for Picking Up Baseballs

Over the years, the Inventions in Everything team has featured many unusual innovations, but few that involve celebrity inventors. Even then, the "big names" we've featured aren't necessarily names many would associate with inventions. Names like Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jackson, and Charlie Sheen. All of whom became famous for their work in other fields.

The co-inventor of the innovation we're featuring today is also much better known for their work in other fields. But unlike the other celebrity inventors we've featured, they have been awarded patents for more than one invention. Those inventions include U.S. Patent 5,515,203 for an educational lens, a specially shaped plastic pouch that can be filled with water to be used like a magnifying glass, U.S. Patents 6,895,694 and 7,254,904 for improved toe shoes to be worn by ballet dancers, and finally, U.S. Patent 7,771,294 for a training device to teach athletes good form for throwing balls.

The inventor's name is William S. Nye, but the following video introduces him how you will almost certainly better know him:

Bill Nye's patented inventions reveal his interest in both education and physical activity, which overlaps today's featured innovation. Here's the backstory for this non-patented invention, which he helped create along with baseball instructor Steve Goucher, who he teamed up with to invent the throwing technique training device awarded U.S. Patent 7,771,294:

“Science Guy” Bill Nye, a well-documented M’s fan, was training for a Mariner Fantasy Camp when he observed one of his trainers’ ad hoc inventions, a bat with a piece of PVC pipe attached to the end for scooping up baseballs to hit during fielding practice. Steve Goucher, Nye’s trainer at the time and a Seattle baseball instructor for 15 years, explained that Nye took one look at it and started seeing ways to make it better.

“He took out his pocketknife on the spot, and started to cut grooves into it,” Goucher says. Nye, a former Boeing engineer who already holds patents for nifty inventions like a water-filled magnifying glass and modified ballet slippers, decided that a baseball grabber might be marketable and partnered with Goucher to develop a product around the idea.

Goucher, who operates baseballjazz.com, had grown tired of stooping all the time to pick up balls to hit to his players. His sore back convinced him to do something about it. So he visited McLendon Hardware in White Center for a piece of PVC pipe, which he attached to the end of his bat. It turned out to be reasonably effective at snatching up baseballs for hitting practice, but it wasn’t until Goucher met Nye that they had the idea to market it to the masses. The two shopped for manufacturers and settled on a rubber version of the grabber, produced by Auburn-based GlobalTech Plastics. They call it the Fango, after the colloquial fungo, a lightweight bat used by coaches for hitting practice.

We tried to find where to buy a "Fango", as Goucher and Nye originally named their innovation, but came up empty. Goucher also marketed the product as a "Quick Pick Fungo Bat", which was sold through Dove Tail Bats but who no longer sells them.

We did however find the invention was also marketed as "The Skipper Stick", which is also no longer sold, but still has an active link to the product. Here are photos of the product:

The Skipper Stick - https://web.archive.org/web/20160114232213/http://baseballjazz.com/skipper-stick
Skipper Stick holding a baseball

Here's the marketing pitch for the product:

Are you a parent or a coach that likes to help your kids by hitting them fly balls with a fungo? Does the constant bending over to pick up balls begin to hurt your back over time? Introducing the new revolution in training tools, The Skipper Stick! This slick fungo was designed with the help of Bill Nye "The Science Guy"! Together with D-BAT they developed this revolutionary new design to alleviate the stress put on the backs of parents and coaches by repetitive bending over. It's a great time saver too! For people that aren't familiar with the benefits of fungos, here is a brief overview. Fungos are specifically designed for coaches to easily hit ground balls and fly balls for infield or outfield practice. Coaches know that hitting ground balls and fly balls to their team can be tiring. The unique shape of fungo bats makes them light weight and extremely easy to swing without wearing your arms out. The fungo bat will make it feel like you are swinging a bat that is a fraction of the weight of a normal bat and will give you extra distance even when you swing easy. The end weight design helps build momentum so that it requires less effort to swing it hard enough to hit the ball to any part of the field. Fungos have become a favorite among coaches because of their lightweight, durability and ease of use.

Whether called the Skipper Stick, a Fango, or a Quick Pick Fungo Bat, Goucher and Nye's innovation of a baseball bat that can pick up baseballs off the ground is an example of an invention for a very niche market, one that likely was too thin to sustain sales for more than a short period of time, even though some of the customers were major league baseball teams.

Steve Goucher and Bill Nye stand in good company in that outcome. Neither Abraham Lincoln's patented invention nor Charlie Sheen's lip balm dispenser never made it to the marketplace, so they're already ahead of the pack. We think only Michael Jackson's special shoes for performing the gravity-defying "lean" maneuver may be the only celebrity invention that's still in use, although that seems to be limited to tribute performances of Smooth Criminal.

Inventions in Everything: The Archives

Ready to sample more of the most creative designs and patents the Inventions in Everything team has explored? Our archives celebrate inventions ranging from the whimsical to the inspired in reverse chronological order!

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- posted by Ironman at 6:10 AM | Permalink | Home |
03 April 2025
New Home Affordability Crisis Enters 35th Month
House keys next to miniature house, mortgage payment, highly detailed, photorealistic Generated with Stable Diffusion DreamStudio Beta.

The cost of owning the typical new home sold in the United States remained fully out of the affordable reach of the median income-earning household for the 35th consecutive month in February 2025.

However, relative affordability of the monthly mortgage payment for the median priced new home sold during the month improved slightly as both mortgage rates and the median new home price declined while median household income increased. Altogether, we estimate the monthly mortgage payment would consume 39.3% of the monthly income of the typical U.S. household in February 2025.

While that's a decline from January's initial estimate of 42.9%, because it exceeds 36% of the median household's pre-tax income, the upper threshold of household income that mortgage lenders use to determine whether they will lend to a household that has no other debt, we find newly built homes continue to be affordable.

The latest update of our chart tracks the changing relative affordability of the typical new home sold in the U.S. is for the typical American household with respect to the mortgage lending industry's key affordability thresholds from January 2000 through February 2025.

Mortgage Payment for a Median New Home as a Percentage of Median Household Income, January 2000 - February 2025

This affordability factor is based on February 2025's initial median new home sale price of $414,500, an estimated median household income of $82,886, and an average 30-year conventional mortgage interest rate of 6.84%.

There is a real potential for improvement in affordability because the average mortgage rate for March 2025 is 6.65%. Whether that potential improvement is realized will hinge on what happens with new home sale prices, for which we won't have data until near the end of April 2025.

About the New Home Affordability Crisis

The affordability crisis for new homes has its origin in the high inflation that was unleashed by the Biden-Harris administration's policies in March 2021. Although it rose slowly at first, the cost of monthly mortgage payment began to skyrocket after December 2021. As a percentage of median household income, the monthly mortgage payment for a new home climbed above the key 36% threshold of relative affordability in April 2022. The relative affordability of new homes has remained above this level for 35 consecutive months.

References

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 26 March 2025. 

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Median and Average Sale Price of Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 26 March 2025. 

Freddie Mac. 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgages Since 1971. [Online Database]. Accessed 29 March 2025. Note: Starting from December 2022, the estimated monthly mortgage rate is taken as the average of weekly 30-year conventional mortgage rates recorded during the calendar month.

Image credit: Stable Diffusion DreamStudio Beta. Prompt: "House keys next to miniature house, mortgage payment, highly detailed, photorealistic".

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- posted by Ironman at 6:04 AM | Permalink | Home |
02 April 2025
Dividends by the Numbers in March 2025 and 2025-Q1
An editorial cartoon of a Wall Street bull and bear anxiously watching a display that says 'DIVIDEND RESULTS' Image generated by Microsoft Copilot Designer

U.S. stock market dividends turned in a mostly negative performance in March 2025.

On the positive side of the ledger, March 2025's 16 dividend decreases came in below the 23 recorded in February 2025. Meanwhile, the year-over-year change in dividend reductions was little changed, increasing by just one over March 2024's total.

However, the change in the number of favorable changes like dividend increases, extra dividends and resumed dividends was decidedly negative. Combined, these three categories added to 141 favorable dividend actions for March 2025, which is 59 less than the 200 reported a year earlier.

This significant year-over-year reduction in favorable dividend actions combines with the small increase in unfavorable dividend changes to give March 2025 an overall score of -60. The following table presents Standard and Poor's dividend metadata for March 2025. It summarizes how the month's dividend data compares in both Month-over-Month (MoM) and Year-Over-Year (YoY) terms with previously reported data:

Dividend Changes in March 2025
   Mar-2025  Feb-2025    MoM  Mar-2024    YoY
Total Declarations 3,585 4,185 -600 ▼ 5,306 -1,721 ▼
Favorable 141 387 -246 ▼ 200 -59 ▼
- Increases 93 286 -193 ▼ 130 -37 ▼
- Special/Extra 47 99 -52 ▼ 67 -20 ▼
- Resumed 1 2 -1 ▼ 3 -2 ▼
Unfavorable 16 23 -7 ▼ 15 1 ▲
- Decreases 16 23 -7 ▼ 15 1 ▲
- Omitted/Passed 0 0 0 ◀▶ 0 0 ◀▶

The following chart shows how these numbers fit in the longer running context of dividend increases and decreases since January 2004.

Number of Public U.S. Firms Increasing or Decreasing Their Dividends Each Month, January 2004 - March 2025

March 2025 represents a continuation of an ongoing negative trend for dividend increases that's been going on since the first quarter of 2023.

Switching to quarterly dividend results, the next chart, groups the previous 15 months worth of dividend increase and decrease data into quarters, covering the last five quarters from 2024-Q1 through 2025-Q1. The chart shows 2025-Q1 was more negative for dividend paying companies in the U.S. stock market than 2024-Q1 was.

Number of U.S. Firms Increasing and Decreasing Dividends by Quarter, 2024-Q1 through 2025-Q1

The silver lining in this data is that the overall number of monthly dividend decreases remains below the threshold that is consistent with recessionary conditions being present in the U.S. economy.

But with a falling number of favorable dividend actions, how long might that continue?

References

Standard and Poor. S&P Market Attributes Web File. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 1 April 2025.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a Wall Street bull and bear anxiously watching a display that says 'DIVIDEND RESULTS'".

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- posted by Ironman at 6:13 AM | Permalink | Home |
01 April 2025
Median Household Income in February 2025
Median Household Income - US Map

Motio Research's initial estimate of U.S. median household income in February 2025 is $82,651. This figure is $278 (0.3%) higher than the firm's initial estimate of median household income of $82,373 in January 2025.

Motio Research's estimates are based on income data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau through its monthly Current Population Survey, which are conducted in the month following the month in question during the week containing the 12th day of the month. The firm adjusts its monthly estimates to account for the effects of seasonality and inflation in its data, presenting its results in the form of an index with the median household income of January 2010 assigned a value of 100. The initial value of the firm's U.S. Real Median Household Income Index for February 2025 is 116.7.

The following screenshot of Motio Research's interactive chart shows how this index has changed from January 2010 through February 2025:

Screenshot of Motio Research U.S. Real Median Household Income Index (MHII) from January 2010 through February 2025

The firm's U.S. Real Median Household Income Index last peaked in September 2024 and has been in a flat-to-lower trend in the months since.

Motio Research also generates household income estimates for the 25th and 75th percentiles in addition to its 50th percentile (median) estimate. The firm reports the households at these positions in the income distribution saw mixed outcomes from their January 2025 levels. Here is what they reported in their 18 March 2025 press release:

The real 25th percentile household income index edged up 0.1% in January, rising to 116.0 (or $41,380). However, lower-quartile incomes have declined by 0.8% over the past three months and remain 0.5% lower than a year ago. The index also remains below its pre-Covid peak of 117.7, underscoring continued challenges in income recovery for lower-income households.

At the upper quartile, the real 75th percentile household income index dipped slightly by 0.1%, settling at 121.0 (or $148,162). Over the past three months, upper-quartile household income has increased by 0.3% and is now 1.4% higher than a year ago. Despite February's small decline, higher-income households continue to maintain a strong position well above their pre-pandemic peak of 117.6.

Motio's press release indicates their estimates suggest "ongoing softness in income growth" for lower-income households during the second month of 2025.

Analyst's Notes

Political Calculations produces estimates of median household income that complement the monthly survey-based estimates produced by Motio Research, which we derive from aggregate income data produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Our initial estimate of median household income in February 2025 based upon our alternate methodology is $82,886, which is $89 (or 0.1%) higher than our initial January 2025 estimate of $82,797. Our median household income estimate is $235 (0.3%) higher than Motio Research's January 2025 estimate.

The latest update to Political Calculations' chart tracking Median Household Income in the 21st Century shows the nominal (red) and inflation-adjusted (blue) trends for median household income in the United States from January 2000 through February 2025. The inflation-adjusted figures are presented in terms of constant February 2025 U.S. dollars and are not seasonally adjusted, unlike the data used to produce Motio Research's Household Income index:

Median Household Income in the 21st Century: Nominal and Real Modeled Estimates, January 2000 to February 2025

Political Calculations' monthly median household income estimates are derived from the Bureau of Economic Analysis' monthly aggregate wage and salary estimates for the U.S. population. For February 2025, this data includes very small downward revisions for November (-0.005%) and December 2024 (-0.066%). The revisions also include a larger downward revision to the aggregate income estimate for January 2025 (-0.223%).

For the latest in our coverage of median household income in the United States, follow this link!

References

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Table 2.6. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Monthly, Personal Income and Outlays, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Monthly, Middle of Month. Population. [Online Database (via Federal Reserve Economic Data)]. Last Updated: 28 March 2025. Accessed: 28 March 2025.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Table 2.6. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Monthly, Personal Income and Outlays, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Monthly, Middle of Month. Compensation of Employees, Received: Wage and Salary Disbursements. [Online Database (via Federal Reserve Economic Data)]. Last Updated: 28 March 2025. Accessed: 28 March 2025.

U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index, All Urban Consumers - (CPI-U), U.S. City Average, All Items, 1982-84=100. Not seasonally adjusted. [Online Database (via Federal Reserve Economic Data)]. Last Updated: 12 March 2025. Accessed: 12 March 2025.

Image credit: U.S. Census Bureau. We modified the public domain image to make it more generally applicable beyond reporting the median household income from 2022.

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- posted by Ironman at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Home |
31 March 2025
S&P 500 Falls as "Magnificent Seven" Stocks Drop
An editorial cartoon of a Wall Street bear looking at a stock chart that's falling. The chart says 'Magnificent Seven'. Image generated with Microsoft Copilot Designer.

The S&P 500 (Index: SPX) fell 1.5% during the final full trading week of March 2025, dropping to 5,580.94 on Friday, 28 March 2025, after dropping 1.97% that day.

By our standards, Friday's trading action doesn't quite qualify as an interesting day for the U.S. stock market, where we define "interesting" as a change in the level of the S&P 500 from the previous day's closing value of 2.00% or more for statistical reasons. Still, it was close to that threshold and came as we're trying to determine whether the U.S. stock market has undergone a regime change since Friday, 21 February 2025.

We're not quite 100% to a full determination, but the data so far is more consistent with the market regime change hypothesis being true than not. The latest update of the alternative futures-based chart is based on the observation that such regime change got underway on 24 February 2025, with the basic trajectory of the S&P 500 following the dividend futures-based model's projection that assumes investors are mostly focusing on the now-current quarter of 2025-Q2 in setting current day stock prices.

Alternative Futures - S&P 500 - 2025Q1 - Standard Model (m=+1.5 from 9 March 2023 through 21 March 2025, m=+4.0 from 24 March 2025) - Snapshot on 28 Mar 2025

As we've kept hammering home, most of the negative change in the S&P 500 since 21 February 2025 has been associated with the deflation of the AI-bubble in stock prices. This deflation has ensnared several companies whose stocks represent the highest weighted components of the S&P 500 index. Collectively known as the "Magnificent Seven", the next chart reveals how they've changed from Friday, 21 February 2025 through Friday, 28 March 2025:

Magnificent Seven stock performance from Friday, 21 February 2025 through Friday, 28 March 2025

Of these seven stocks, only the stock price of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has fallen by a smaller percentage than the overall S&P 500 during this period. Regardless, because of their high weighting within the index, each has made an outsized contribution to the index' decline.

Here are the week's market-moving headlines, many of which from mainstream news outlets are still missing out on what's been the biggest stock market-moving story of the year to date. We've selected some minor headlines to include in this week's edition just to emphasize the extent to which AI-technology associated stocks have dropped.

Monday, 24 March 2025
Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Thursday, 27 March 2025
Friday, 28 March 2025

The CME Group's FedWatch Tool's projections are mostly unchanged going into this week. The FedWatch Tool projects the Fed will resume cutting rates with a quarter point rate reduction when Fed meets on 18 June (2025-Q2). The FedWatch tool also anticipates additional quarter point rate cuts at 12-week intervals in the second half of 2025, coinciding with the Fed's FOMC meetings on 18 June (2025-Q2), 17 September (2025-Q3), and 10 December (2025-Q4). The only notable change is there's now a dividend cut projected in mid-2026, which outside investors' typical 0-12 month investment horizon window.

The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tool's projection of what real GDP growth will be in 2025-Q1 hels steady at -1.8%. However, the GDPNow tool is now providing an alternate model forecast that corrects for the surge in gold imports, which are skewing it's projection. That adjusted forecast indicates -0.5% growth.

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a Wall Street bear looking at a stock chart that's falling. The chart says 'Magnificent Seven'."

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- posted by Ironman at 6:10 AM | Permalink | Home |

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Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:

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