De Beers Pulls "Last Resort" Price Cut As Diamond Price-Floor Crumbles
(www.zerohedge.com)
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Except for a few industrial uses, diamonds have little intrinsic value. People seek after them because they are shiny objects and are considered "rate"... although part of that perceived rarity is due to a tightly manipulated market. I'd rather hold gold and silver.
Never liked diamonds and never asked for them.
My husband calls me a cheap date.
Funny but my wife says she doesn't like diamonds either. She prefers colored stones like emeralds and rubies.
I like colored stones better but I really am not a jewelry person.
For Christmas years ago he bought me a cross with the birthstones of the grandkids on it. It was custom made and beautiful.
When I found out it was over 2K I was upset. This was at the time we really had little money.
You can see it when I get to TN.
It's a sweet gesture. Sounds like you have a keeper.
Yep.
Aside from Exodus 28 describing the precious stones in the high priests breastplate and the coincidence of there being 12 of them. Also, Revelation 22 describing the Tree of Life bearing 12 different fruits one for each month. Lots of scams are rooted in misrepresentation of biblical texts though, so who knows.
My wifes ring is silver with a quartz, 100 dollar ring. She doesn't impress people with fancy stuff.
My wife also isn't a huge fan of diamonds. Hmmm, maybe we've uncovered a "patriot indicator" :)
Cost Effective Date.
I like that better.
Engagement/wedding jewry is the ultimate scam for the ultimate sheep ---- the ultimate wasteful expenditure for the stupidest reason.
And they count on you holding for sentimental reasons...friend at work was going to downsize and sell his wife's five grand rock....place he bought it offered two grand store credit
After 20 years my wife's wedding rings are showing wear. They are fused together to reduce wear and are a thick square shape to keep them centered.
The Jewish family owned jeweler (shocking...I know 🙄) said it wasn't worth the work to repair her rings and then proceeded to show us new $10,000 flimsy thin rings that hardly had any gold in them.
She still wears her old rings and prefers them.
President Trump mentioned that diamond values were about to plummet in the past year. It was during a rally, and he had said they were used to launder money but that was coming to an end.
I was surprised while shopping at Sams Club and saw some 1 carat lab created earrings for something like $500. Trump had mentioned that the lab created stones now were so good it would crash the value of natural stones.
My wife actually really likes the lab stones. I'd rather just get her real gold/silver bracelet or something but for the sparkles she likes the cheap champaign. Haha.
My wife, in her wisdom, much prefers our disposable income to be much higher than our bills such that she can purchase a lab diamond on any given month rather than having debt for a "real" stone.
Myself, in my wisdom, have learned that most women seem to generally value and prefer to spend a day getting their nails done, shopping for clothes, and having enough left over to order the large queso at the Mexican food joint to end the day 100x Over a single diamond.
I think no woman wants a man to get them a diamond and them not order the large queso.
It's pretty funny that a well-cut cubic zirconium stone is waaaay more sparkly/fiery than the same size, same shape, same cut, diamond. They look so much better than real diamonds that they actually look fake.
Ever since we figured out how to make diamonds ---- their jewry price has been artificial.
Could the veil finally be lifting off diamonds and the DeBeers family? One can only hope, right?
It is pretty amazing how they were able to create an entire industry out of thin air! I'm sure there are many other products that only have interest, and a long history of being popular, due to advertising and marketing. (pet rocks didn't last though :) )
The GREATEST marketing campaign was done by De Beers when they sold to the public---with the MSM--- that diamonds were scarce! The only thing that makes diamonds scarce is a monopoly like De Beers had for a hundred years.
Exact same thing Rockefeller did with oil. Fake scarcity. Amazing marketing scheme.
now do oil
Yeah. The Rockefeller fiction.
How can something based on CARBON be scarce?
Same question applies to oil of course.
But sheep will be sheep.
Yes of course it's rare due to what is required for it to form. But rare is not necessarily scarce, especially with technological development.
There was a time where rubber was scarce because it came from trees in Java. Now synthetic rubber is everywhere.
The germans had synthetic oil production from coal during WW2.
In this day an age, scarcity of a carbon based component is mostly artificial. Obviously a diamond cannot be as plentiful as a piece of coal, even though they're the same element; but it's also not as scarce as DeScaams wants you to believe.
What makes a rare diamond is size, clarity, color and cut; a one carat round cut 'D" color and VVS1 or IF (internally flawless) are rare-size is everything in diamonds..
I never did understand why this monopoly was acceptable, but all others (except Microsoft) weren't.
Linux ---- 30 years now
Microsoft owns part of the Unix kernel source code, along with several other tech firms, including Apple.
I will also add that, given that MacOS is based on BSD that means that MS also owns part of that.
Linux, yes. I'm using a Fedora based distro and am quite pleased with it.
But Microsoft needs to be split into at least 5 companies and prevented from doing business with its former parts.
It also needs to be forced to divest itself from every OS is has legal claim to other than Windows.
Further more, any software that is deprecated and no longer maintains should have to go Open Source no more than 6 years from the date it is no longer maintained.
FreeBSD is free. Berkeley Software Distribution was separated from proprietary Unix. FreeBSD is freely distributable.
Because of nature of the BSD license, you can modify it and make is proprietary (like Apple did) ----- but the original code is still free (like Darwin).
GPL (unlike BSD) requires the modified version to have freely available source code too. This is why Linux has a snowball effect.
Unix ----- the original AT&T proprietary version
Xenix ------ small computer version of Unix the original proprietary version
BSD---- free rewrite of Unix
Apple ---- BSD, modified, made proprietary
Darwin ---- free part of Apple
Linux ----- not Unix, but Unix like, free, modifications free too
This is one of my all-time favorites, and absolutely relevant here. I was going to use a you-tube link but the "ad" at the beginning was something with Disney and Angelina Jolie,so TikTok it is.
https://www.tiktok.com/@ron_white/video/7374441048778476842
“There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father’s love for his child.” - King Osric
Back when Hollywood made good movies and Arnohld wasn't an utter pile of offal.
If this industry would die, that would be very positive for human flourishing, afaik.
Time to start shopping for my 25th anniversary eternity ring...
.... or not
i wonder, how many diamonds were made from the remains of trafficked children?
http://lifegem.com/
https://everdear.co/turn-ashes-to-diamonds-cost
Maybe my wife is the exception, she hates lab-grown gems, and wants the "real thing". Even though you get better clarity, brilliance and shine with Lab Grown. It takes very specialized equipment to tell the difference.
Shiny rock, is a shiny rock
Maybe she is a crystal girly
I think the idea of a real diamond forming in Earth is magical and one of God's miracles
I do wish they were priced better, there are crystals that are more rare and meaningful than diamonds, yet not even worth a fraction
I was laughing to myself when a diamond commercial came on the other evening and they were stressing how important it was to have 'natural' diamonds for your most cherished gifts.
I knew then they were getting slaughtered by lab grown diamonds.