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Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

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Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#101

Post by CrazyStat »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #97
raverbashing wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life Pro-Tip: don't marry a woman that will feel unvalued by the stone in the wedding ring. Spend the money in something better and that will further the relationship, like the honeymoon.

Better yet, stick it in an index tracker fund for 30 years and when you’re 60 you’ll have a million in the bank. Which you won’t spend anyway because you’ll have nothing and no one to spend it on. But smugness and pride are truly priceless.

60x return in say 35 years is a pretty damn good index fund, can you tell me where to get that?

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#102

Post by greenonions »

jtms wrote: post #53
bruceb wrote: post #50

One way to shake up the industry is just not to buy diamond wedding rings. That simple. Big rocks on a finger make the person seem needy and insecure. Like I need this big flashy thing is proof of my worth.

Anecdotally, many younger couples I know are going with lab made stones or gemstones other than diamonds.

I bought my wife a simple gold band. We were students. I told her how Americans spend so much money on diamonds and she was like, "that's stupid, you could go on such a good vacation and have nice food."

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#103

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #89
jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #45

What do you do with your diamonds? Are they supposed to have nice piezoelectric properties or something?

Well, it's one of the hardest known materials...

I found an excerpt from geology.com about uses for lab-grown diamonds:

"wear-resistant bearings, heat sinks for computer processors, and high-temperature windows."

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#104

Post by Animats »

It's hard to take diamonds seriously any more. This is a diamond factory in China.[1] That's the "high pressure high temperature" process, a huge room of very strongly built presses. There's also the "controlled vapor deposition" process. Alibaba has huge lots of diamonds produced that way. Those are real diamonds. Mostly. You may get cubic zirconia.

Cubic zirconia is so cheap that those stones come in plastic bags and are sold in lots of 1000.

Distinguishing CVD diamonds from natural diamonds is getting harder each year. The diamond industry treats flawless, clear diamonds as the ideal, and that's what CVD produces best - perfect crystals with only carbon. It's based on a process from semiconductor manufacturing. Distinguishing good CVD diamonds from natural now requires rather elaborate equipment.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-manufacturer-Di...

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#105

Post by markdown »

pinkfoot wrote: post #85
olliswe wrote: post #81

I currently live in Sierra Leone working as a software dev, and just came back from an evening jog around the largest diamond mine in West Africa. It's crazy how much pain an misery diamonds have caused to this country. The citizens here in Koidu don't get any of the income of the diamonds, and live it extreme poverty... Meanwhile the guys from De Beers are living bougie lives in their maximum security compounds, wit…

> The citizens here in Koidu don't get any of the income of the diamonds. Surely the issue of where and how minimg licences and sales revenue is distributed in SL, is something the folk of Koidu should take up with their government. As with any company anyehere, De Beers pays the share they are obliged to to the authorities.

How much do you think Apple pays the US govt in taxes? The US is held together by taxes on the working man and small businesses. Massive corporations don't pay their fair share.

How can you expect the tax situation to be better in Sierra Leone?

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#106

Post by dorfsmay »

matwood wrote: post #23
irishcoffee wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was fortunate enough to discover moissanite. Wife loves it, and the price was somewhere in the ballpark of 90-95% cheaper than an equivalent size diamond. The added benefit is, everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them...

> everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them It also avoids conversations that have few good outcomes. Tell someone who spent $$$$ on a diamond that you think diamonds are a waste of money or a humanitarian disaster, and it's not a great way to start a conversation. There are also other colored stones that I think are nicer looking than diamonds, but moissanite provides a nice way…

Cultural norm?

That concept was invented by an ad agency paid for by de Beers.

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/diamond-de-beers-marketin...

Does anyone really pay attention and judge others based on their choice of wedding jewelry, or wearing any, or being married even, in 2020?

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#107

Post by simonh »

markdown wrote: post #105
pinkfoot wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The citizens here in Koidu don't get any of the income of the diamonds. Surely the issue of where and how minimg licences and sales revenue is distributed in SL, is something the folk of Koidu should take up with their government. As with any company anyehere, De Beers pays the share they are obliged to to the authorities.

How much do you think Apple pays the US govt in taxes? The US is held together by taxes on the working man and small businesses. Massive corporations don't pay their fair share. How can you expect the tax situation to be better in Sierra Leone?

Apple paid about $35bn in corporate income taxes globally in the last 3 years. Their effective global corporate tax rate is 24.6 percent and most of their taxes were paid in the US.

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#108

Post by simonh »

CrazyStat wrote: post #101
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet, stick it in an index tracker fund for 30 years and when you’re 60 you’ll have a million in the bank. Which you won’t spend anyway because you’ll have nothing and no one to spend it on. But smugness and pride are truly priceless.

60x return in say 35 years is a pretty damn good index fund, can you tell me where to get that?

I suppose technically the post doesn’t specify a currency.

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#109

Post by nunb »

dorfsmay wrote: post #106
matwood wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them It also avoids conversations that have few good outcomes. Tell someone who spent $$$$ on a diamond that you think diamonds are a waste of money or a humanitarian disaster, and it's not a great way to start a conversation. There are also other colored stones that I think are nicer looking than diamonds, but moissanite provides a nice way…

Cultural norm? That concept was invented by an ad agency paid for by de Beers. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/diamond-de-beers-marketin... Does anyone really pay attention and judge others based on their choice of wedding jewelry, or wearing any, or being married even, in 2020?

Varies by countries, cultures and sub-cultures I expect...

Re: Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

#110

Post by basch »

Animats wrote: post #104

It's hard to take diamonds seriously any more. This is a diamond factory in China.[1] That's the "high pressure high temperature" process, a huge room of very strongly built presses. There's also the "controlled vapor deposition" process. Alibaba has huge lots of diamonds produced that way. Those are real diamonds. Mostly. You may get cubic zirconia. Cubic zirconia is so cheap that those stones come in plastic bags a…

The only real benefit to distinguishing is to pay more for the same thing. A person asking to prove something is "real" is literally volunteering to overpay.

Imagine having two ot of the otherwise same thing in front of you but one comes with an optional marketing hype tax.

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