There's a big market for products like flea collars that address the needs of dog owners who want to prevent their pets from picking up fleas and ticks when they're outside. There's an even bigger market for dog clothing for pet owners who would like their dogs to make style statements.

What if there were an invention that combined these two product categories? In theory, the inventor behind such an invention could benefit by claiming a small share of both markets.

As it happens, there is such an invention, although its inventor didn't quite realize its full potential! In September 1963, inventor Seroun Kesh of Detroit, Michigan was awarded U.S. Patent 3,150,641 for his invention "Dust Cover For Dog". Here's a colorized depiction of the patent's illustrations:

In the patent, Kesh describes the problems of pet owners he believed his innovation would solve:

It is well-known to animal lovers that dogs and cats harbor fleas and other pests and that the attempt to eradicate such pests oftentimes poses quite a problem. Efficient powders and sprays are now on the market for eliminating these pests, but their effective application and retention leaves much to be desired.

It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a device, which will greatly assist the animal owner, in the effective application and retention of such pesticides on the animal, for a period of time sufficient to do the work required.

Another object of the invention is to provide an animal covering of the character indicated, which will protect the clothing, rugs, furniture of the owner from damage, while the animal is being treated for fleas and the like.

If you look at the patent illustrations, it's pretty clear Kesh has not invented a dust cover for a dog so much as a full body suit for a canine companion. One that could not only be used for his stated purpose of keeping flea powder off the pet owner's furnishings, but could also work like a raincoat in keeping water and dirt off the dog, or even block fleas and ticks from being able to latch onto the dog. Add a fashionable pattern to the dog's body suit and the potential to make bank from the inventions was certainly in place, as a simple search for dog bodysuits on Amazon makes clear!

Including the flea suits and recovery suits for dogs, which are reasonably priced in today's market. Kesh's basic concept for his invention is a proven success.

That success includes another capability of the invention described in the patent. That strange tube on the dog's back near the tail has a specific function:

Another object of the invention is to provide a device of the character indicated, which is constructed and arranged, so that it may be used to help rapidly dry the animal's fur after a bath, by the simple expedient of attaching thereto the hot air exhaust end of a hair dryer device, whereby to permit the hot air to reach all parts of the animal's body.

That aspect of the invention can be found in today's dog drying bag, which works just like Kesh's concept.

It's not often the IIE team comes across an invention that, at first glance, appears to be destined for the annals of odd and unsuccessful inventions, but which after a bit of shopping research, we find is genuinely successful and is the inspiration for many products available in today's marketplace. The Doggy Dust Cover, and its modern descendants, is a rare exception to the rule!

Inventions in Everything: The Archives

The IIE team has gone to the dogs before, but only for just a handful of inventions. Here's that short list!

• Inventions in Everything: Toilets for Dogs
• Inventions in Everything: The Silliest Illustration Ever in a U.S. Patent?
• Inventions in Everything: Keeping Dog Time
• Inventions in Everything: Texting Your Dog a Treat

What percent of your monthly pre-tax income is consumed by your mortgage payment?

If the result of that math is 36% of your pre-tax income, provided you have no other debt, your home just barely qualifies as being affordable by mortgage lenders. If however your mortgage payment only eats up 28% or less of your gross monthly income, mortgage lenders will view your mortgage payment as being very affordable for you.

Anywhere in between these two percentages, which come from the 28/36 rule that mortgage lenders use to determine how big a mortgage payment a prospective homebuy can afford, your home is considered to be affordable provided it and your total debts don't exceed that upper 36% threshold. Which is to say that if you manage your household's total debt load well, the home you own is within your affordable reach.

In October 2025, the typical new home sold in the United States fell within the affordable reach of the typical American household for the first time since early 2022. New home sales price data for both November and December 2025 that was delayed by the Senate Democrats' government shutdown fiasco in the fourth quarter of 2025 recently became available. That price data, along with the latest median household income estimates for November and December 2025, confirm new homes fall between the 28% and 36% affordability thresholds for a household earning the median household income in those months. For three consecutive months, the cost of the typical new home sold in the U.S. has been within the affordable reach of the typical American household.

The following chart tracks the changing relative affordability of the typical new home sold in the U.S. from January 2000 through December 2025. It visually confirms the cost of owning a new home, while still on the high side, has returned to and stayed within affordable levels.

Falling mortgage rates have been a key part of the rise of affordability in these months. Looking forward, both January and February 2026 have seen the benchmark 30-year conventional fixed rate mortgage continue to fall, dropping below six percent in the final week of February 2026.

We won't get the median new home sale price data for January 2026 until later this month, but the trend of increasing affordability established since early 2025 remains favorable.

Analyst's Notes

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, remaining above it in every month since. At least, until October 2025 when it finally dropped back below it.

We use the zero-down payment scenario to assess affordability because it provides a simple way to account for the opportunity costs of paying a down payment when buying a new home for many homebuyers. There are also several lending programs for qualified homebuyers that do provide a zero-down payment option to try to make buying a home more affordable, so it is also a realistic scenario on its own, though the majority of homebuyers do use money saved to make a down payment when they buy a home.

References

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 20 February 2026. 

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Median and Average Sale Price of Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 20 February 2026. 

Freddie Mac. 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgages Since 1971. [Online Database]. Accessed 2 March 2026. 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: Wooden family figures and house with keys on table photo by IGOR LOLATTO on Unsplash.

Political Calculations' initial estimate of the total valuation of U.S. new home sales is $28.10 billion for November 2025 and $30.36 billion for December 2025. Initial sales and price data for both months recently became available after having been delayed because of the Senate Democrats' 43-day-long government shutdown fiasco during the last quarter of 2025.

The initial estimates of the number of new home sales reported for November and December 2025 is 53,000 and 57,000 for each month respectively, which indicate growth in the new home market as the year came to a close. Average new home prices are likewise higher than was recorded a year earlier at $530,200 and $532,600 for both months.

Taking basic seasonality into account, the trailing twelve month average of new home sales was $28.28 billion in November and $28.20 billion in December 2025. These figures indicate the new home market continued slowed after peaking at the revised estimates of $29.17 billion in September 2025 and the $28.85 billion estimated for October 2025.

These figures represent time-shifted, partial trailing twelve month averages. The initial estimate for any given month is based on the U.S. Census Bureau's estimated annualized number of new home sales multiplied by their average price for that month, which is averaged with the data for the preceding six months. These total valuation (or new home market capitalization) estimates are then updated as each new month's data is added to it, until it covers a full twelve months worth of data, and as older data is revised, which continues until that data is finalized some 10 months after the month for which the data applies.

The benefit of this approach is that it 'centers' the trailing average in something closer to real time, which makes it easier to tell when changes in trend take place. The disadvantage is that the latest data is incomplete. It will be subject to revision during the next nine months as new estimates are incorporated and older estimates are revised. The following charts present the U.S. new home market capitalization, the number of new home sales, and their sale prices as measured by their time-shifted, trailing twelve month averages from January 1976 through December 2025.

New home sales:

Average new home prices:

Here's how Realtor.com is reporting the year end of new home sales for 2025:

New-home sales jumped in November before retreating slightly in December to finish 2025 with an estimated 679,000 new homes sold, 1.1% fewer than in 2024. The momentum gained at the end of an otherwise slow year is an encouraging sign for new-home sales in 2026, as buyers are responding to lower mortgage rates and deciding to pull the trigger on newly built homes....

Though the annual sales totals for 2025 came in a bit lower than for 2024, the new-home market has some momentum and balance going into 2026 as demand for homes is heating up. It is still a good time to buy a new-construction home, but buyers may face a bit more competition than they did for most of 2025, and builders may find themselves in a position where they need more inventory to meet demand.

Since the end of 2025, mortgage rates have continued falling and dropped below the six percent level at the end of February 2026. The Census Bureau will report its new home sales data for January 2026 on 19 March 2026, which we'll cover sometime during the week following its release.

References

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

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Median and Average Sale Price of Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 20 February 2026. 

Image credit: A hand reaching for a pink house in front of a row of houses photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash.

Motio Research reports their initial estimate of U.S. median household income for December 2025 is $87,270, a $450 (or 0.5%) increase from their initial December 2025 estimate of $86,820.

The firm's estimates are based on income data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau through its monthly Current Population Survey. This survey is conducted during the week containing the 12th day of the month following the month in which its data applies. Motio Research adjusts its raw monthly estimates to account for the effects of seasonality and inflation, 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 January 2026 is 118.9.

The following screenshot of Motio Research's interactive chart shows how this index has changed from January 2010 through January 2026:

Evidence is mounting that Motio Research's survey-based estimates, which have seen a surge in median household income since July 2025, is picking up on a real change in trend from the pattern established since April 2021. We've advanced a hypothesis that explains why this development is occurring, which we'll update in a separate analysis in the near future.

Analyst's Notes

Political Calculations produces median household income estimates using other original data sources that complement Motio Research's survey-based estimates. Because of the ongoing delays in official aggregate wage and salary data being reported, we'll present our estimate for December 2025 in this edition and our estimate for January 2026 in next month's edition. We expect to fully catch up with Motio Research's estimates with our February and March 2026 estimates in early May 2026.

Political Calculations' official estimate for median household income in December 2025 is $85,931, which is $101 higher than the ballpark estimate we projected last month. The following chart presents our estimates of U.S. median household income, both adjusted for inflation (blue) and not-adjusted for inflation (red) for each month from January 2000 through December 2025.

Political Calculations' December 2025 estimate is $889 (one percent) below Motio Research's estimate of $86,820 for the month.

Since the last edition of this series, the U.S. Census Bureau has released revised resident population estimates for the United States, adjusting many of its previous estimates downward. The revision is significant, affecting estimates extending back to March 2020, with the biggest changes taking place in the period from July 2024 to the present.

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.

The S&P 500 (Index: SPX) see-sawed during the trading week ending on Friday, 27 February 2026. The index ended the week at 6,878.88, down 0.44% from where it closed the preceding week as geopolitical tensions built during the week.

If not for Friday, the rises and falls of stock prices would have cancelled out, leaving the index essentially flat for the week. But Friday was a down day for the S&P 500. Oil prices surged along with an increased potential for military action between the U.S. and the Islamic regime that has controlled Iran since 1979, as negotiations to avoid conflict showed little progress.

Even with that development, the change in stock prices was muted. latest update of the alternative futures chart shows the S&P 500 is close to the middle of the redzone forecast range we recently added to account for the echoes of volatility from last year's DeepSeek AI shock and "Liberation Day" global tariff shock on its projections.

This compensation is necessary because the dividend futures-based model behind the projections shown on the alternative futures chart uses historical stock prices as the base reference points from which its forecasts of the potential futures for the S&P 500's trajectory are made. The redzone forecast range assumes investors will primarily focus on the upcoming quarter of 2026-Q2 as they set current day stock prices over the period it runs.

Here are the week's market-moving headlines, which adds geopolitics to the ongoing concerns over tariffs and AI for shaping investor expectations.

Monday, 23 February 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Trump says US global tariff rate will rise from 10% to 15%
• Winners and losers from Trump's new 15% global tariff
• EU says it will accept no increase in US tariffs
• US tariff turmoil leaves Treasury markets dazed
• Oil at six-month high with nuclear talks and US tariffs in focus
• US and Iran slide towards conflict as military buildup eclipses talks
• Iran hit by resurgent protests as U.S. builds pressure ahead of new nuclear talks
• Fed minions keep trying to sell their pause in cutting interest rates:
• Fed's Waller: January jobs data an upside surprise, if it continues a policy pause may be appropriate
• BOJ minions likely to fight falling yen with rate hikes:
• BOJ may raise rates in March if yen resumes slide, says ex-policymaker
• Chief ECB minions trying really hard to sell idea Eurozone monetary policy is in a good place, also may have an ethical scandal:
• ECB's Lagarde sticks with 'good place' mantra
• ECB's Lagarde receives 140,000 euros from BIS despite payment ban for ECB staff, FT reports
• Wall Street dragged down by AI-disruption fears, tariff uncertainty
• Wall Street ends sharply lower amid AI displacement fears and revived tariff angst
• Enterprise software stocks tumble after Citrini note on AI risks
• Investors shift from AI darlings to ‘heavy asset’ stocks in search of stability

Tuesday, 24 February 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• New US tariffs come in at lower 10% rate
• US single-family home price growth slows in December, FHFA says
• Despite Rise In December, US Home Prices Saw Weakest Full-Year Gain Since 2011
• Oil prices hover near seven-month highs on US-Iran tensions
• Middle East oil exports push tanker costs to 6-year-high amid threat of US-Iran war
• Ten years after first cargo, US LNG dominance set to keep growing
• Fed minions starting to think AI might cause job losses, claim they can' t do anything about it:
• Fed's Cook says AI triggering big changes, sees possible short-term unemployment rise
• Exclusive: Bostic says Fed cannot offset possible rise in structural unemployment
• Fed's Waller says central bank deploying AI tech cautiously
• Fed's Goolsbee: Rate cuts appropriate if inflation falls, but too soon to bet on productivity
• Bigger trouble developing in China:
• China says it will decide on US tariff countermeasures in due course
• BOJ minions standing by to leap into action to stop Japanese yen from collapsing:
• Yen slips after report on Japanese PM's rate-hike reservations
• Bigger trouble developing in the Eurozone:
• European car sales fall in January, petrol cars sharply decline
• Wall Street ends higher as software stocks rebound from Monday selloff
• Wall St bounces back, ending higher on renewed tech vigor, easing AI concerns
• Gold drops on profit-taking, seen likely consolidating above $5,000

Wednesday, 25 February 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil turns negative as large US crude stock build outshines supply concerns
• OPEC+ to consider 137,000 bpd oil output increase for April, sources say
• Trump says he has told big tech companies to build their own power plants
• New US tariff starts at 10%, Trump administration working to hike it to 15%
• US tariff rate to hit 15% or more for some nations, USTR says
• Fed minions still worrying about inflation even though it's running under the level they've really been targeting:
• Fed's Schmid says high inflation still bigger issue facing central bank
• Bigger trouble developing in China:
• China says it has met US trade obligations, warns against more tariffs
• BOJ minions see steady inflation, standing by to prop up yen as looser policy:
• Japan's services inflation steady, signals wage-driven price pressure
• Yen hits fresh 2-week lows, market sentiment in focus
• In surprise move, Japan's government taps two reflationists for BOJ board
• Exclusive: Ex-BOJ chief Kuroda calls for rate hikes, tighter fiscal policy
• ECB minions find out who their Number Two is:
• ECB approves Vujcic as new vice-president
• Wall Street ended higher ahead of Nvidia's earnings
• Wall St opens higher in run-up to Nvidia earnings as AI worries abate
• Bonds outperform equities as AI scare fuels rotation, Barclays says

Thursday, 26 February 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil settles down after choppy session as traders follow US, Iran talks
• US mortgage rates dip below 6%, but supply remains key
• Fed minions thinking about more rate cuts, but not until later in the year:
• Fed's Goolsbee forecasts several more rate cuts this year, but not soon
• Fed's Miran: Four quarter-point cuts still warranted this year, no "all clear" for job market
• Bigger trouble developing in China:
• US trade panel to probe impact of revoking China's permanent normal trade status
• BOJ gets new minions, gets stronger yen after rate hike threat:
• Japan's Takaichi gets her doves in a row with BOJ board appointees
• Yen strengthens after Bank of Japan signals data-driven rate hikes
• Bigger trouble developing in the Eurozone, chief ECB minion claims again she won't quit early and also sees no wave of AI job layoffs yet:
• Euro zone business lending growth slows, ECB data shows
• ECB expects food inflation to settle just above 2%
• ECB's Lagarde again hints at completing term
• ECB sees no wave of AI-led layoffs yet, Lagarde says
• Wall Street ended lower as investors digested Nvidia results
• Wall St ends lower as tech rally stalls, AI fervor wanes after Nvidia results
• Nvidia's results beat estimates, but Wall Street wants more cash return
• Tech stocks slide as AI spending fears return
• Wall Street turns to complex trades to dodge AI ‘implosions’

Friday, 27 February 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Oil prices rise 3% as US and Iran extend talks into next week
• US oil output fell in December to lowest since June 2025, EIA says
• US producer prices rise strongly in January
• Restaurants emerge as bright spot for US job growth as consumers seek treats
• Bigger stimulus developing in China:
• China needs more proactive and coordinated policies, Politburo says
• Chinese Yuan Breaks Past 6.84 to US Dollar, Hitting Nearly Three-Year High
• As the yuan sizzles, China’s central bank deploys double-barrelled policy tweak
• China encourages dollar buying to slow surging yuan
• What can China do to slow down its rising currency?
• BOJ minions see inflation that doesn't justify rate hikes:
• Core inflation in Japan's capital slows below BOJ's 2% target in test for policy
• Lower inflation developing in Eurozone:
• German inflation unexpectedly dips to 2% in February
• Wall Street ended lower after wholesale inflation arrived hotter than expected
• Wall Street hit by UK mortgage lender collapse, raising fears of more credit 'cockroaches'
• Barclays, Jefferies shares slide as UK mortgage lender collapse revives wider credit fears
• Barclays, Santander, Wells Fargo in Street lenders exposed to failed UK-based MFS - report

The CME Group's FedWatch Tool is giving a 66% probability the Fed will cut the Federal Funds Rate by a quarter point on 17 June (2026-Q2) which is higher than the preceding week. Beyond that date however, the outlook for rate cuts has changed with additional quarter point rate cuts on 16 September (2026-Q3), and 27 January (2027-Q1) now expected with better than even odds.

The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tool forecasts real GDP growth will be +3.0% in the current quarter of 2026-Q1, a tick lower than the +3.1% growth projected a week earlier.

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a Wall Street bull and bear who are both wearing suits playing on a seesaw while looking at a stock chart labeled 'SP 500' showing several up and down daily changes ending down".