What I hear in your post (with some of my own interpretation mixed in) is that there is a fundamental value problem in mass marketed goods. Historically, achieving maximum “product benefit” in the form of self-expression has been tempered by “product cost” and (limited buying power). This has then resulted in a consumer regression-to-the-self-expression-mean. Through extrapolation of your thoughts, in the old 20th century world “price” ruled tyrannically over “value” and things like “demographic targeting” and even “target markets” and other abstractions of we-the-people were literally invented in order to achieve economies of scale and a price point that was viable. I suppose these abstractions do at least acknowledge some degree of buyer difference! And…sadly….that gave us the stepford wives, swanson dinners, wal-mart and only one pair of jeans to put our sexy asses in. Essentially, we’ve had to compromise between having the David-brand and having something we can actually afford. Put another way, during the 20th century we simply couldn’t afford to express ourselves. This is a pretty profound framing I think. Thank you!

While you don’t say it explicitly, I think this ultimately a value problem …and…one that has always been there. This “its always been there” is probably pretty important – you would resist the notion that this we-are-approaching-the-one-brand-to-one-person-ideal is actually an aesthetic or fashion trend (you don’t believe the stepford wives really, truly, deeply wanted to all look and buy the same). So would I. So…I think its best described as a “problem” and I believe you’re postulating that we might come closer than ever to solving for it, inspired by the uber-scalable internet and enabled by general prosperity. Or…maybe we can even go as far as to say that this is the new world order and companies will have to solve for it if they want to survive. Cool.

Back to my real point….what I’d like to add to your post is a supply side force that I think is as instrumental to this change as the demand/consumer side that you articulate. I think the most important force in the return of manufacturing to the U.S. will be the decreased diversity of labor costs in the global labor market. At some point the increased transport costs will eclipse the decreased labor costs and there will be no reason to have manufacturing far away. I think I diverge from you in that I don’t actually think price is irrelevant because people aren’t sensitive to it, but that that ability provide enough differentiation through price will be increasingly limited, perhaps to the point of being moot, and differentiation will have to be achieved through other means.

Specifically, the ability to increase economic productivity through decreased labor costs will be gone but the need to compete will remain. If the ability to compete on price derived through the pursuit of cheaper and cheaper labor is gone, then here’s hoping that you are right and companies will be forced to compete on increasing consumer value which you speculate will be based on how much it allows the consumer to express their unique identity. That’d be dope.

I think that one can’t / won’t happen without the other.

Thanks again David.

Still seeing 1 sheet of saran wrap?

It’s amazing how efficient capitalism can be! When you’re paying cash, the doctor is always in.

I did check pretty extensively – scuba and skydiving are both permitted one month after Lasik. The Intralase is a big help for making sure I can continue to do even my more extreme activities!

I’ve had a very similar situation — I’ve went from ~200 lbs to ~145 lbs in a year. First 40 lbs were within six months, the next 15-20 lbs were within the other six months. I am 5’10″ so my BMI was similar. One of the things you mention is importance of cardio — I can’t stress it enough. Nonetheless, light weight lifting (spread around the body, vs. focused just on the upper body) *does* help — muscles use a greater amount of energy than fat, helping you burn weight. Doing *many* sets with lesser weight is also more effective towards that goal. In any case, for weight lifting to be effective one should do at least *some* cardio beforehand, else the blood simply isn’t being delivered to the muscles.

I’ve written up my own observations and my experience on this topic — http://weblog.strlen.net/?p=7. Lot of them mirror yours.

In any case, best of luck

- Alex