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South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

wsj.com

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Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#161

Post by SoftTalker »

hedora wrote: post #154
jonstewart wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully most people here getting ribeyes aren’t getting them from the same factory farms that supply McDonald’s and sell other cheap kinds of beef. A ribeye is an occasional luxury and best bought from the farmer.

The industry has mostly consolidated packing and distribution. McDonald's is mostly selling trimmings from cows that also produce high-end steaks. Surprisingly enough, they hold most beef processing plants to higher standards than the rest of the industry (they're still buying cheap trimmings, don't get me wrong), because they do so much volume, basic probability tells us that most food poisoning outbreaks would hit…

Back when McDonalds was first rolling out their standardized restaurants and menu, it was pretty common for restaurants to buy fresh ground beef from local sources, some of whom were less clean and less careful about temperatures and selling old meat. It was also common for them to mix in old meat with fresher meat to try to "hide" it. Since it's all ground up, it's hard to tell.

So they developed standards and demanded that all their hamburgers be formed, frozen, and packaged by the processor and kept frozen until cooking. It's really the safest way to handle that volume of ground beef through the distribution chain.

Apparently their 1/4 lb burgers now use fresh beef, not frozen. Not sure how that's handled but it sounds more risky.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#162

Post by eudamoniac »

kstrauser wrote: post #61
tedchs wrote: post #14

> Demand for engagement rings gave thousands of South Africans steady work at De Beers. Now, weak sales and lab-grown stones are taking it away. So wait, on this Labor Day weekend, it sounds like the WSJ is pro-worker, but only if they're in South Africa?

Given the infamous conditions of diamond mining, to me that reads like “won’t someone think of the jobless slaves?” Someone no longer being forced to slave away in the mines is not exactly a great loss to workers rights. “De Beers: Because the tears of children make it sparkle!”

They're not jobless slaves, they are job having people who are losing their jobs. If there was a better job available they'd do it. Now they are going to be homeless I assume.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#163

Post by msm_ »

watwut wrote: post #137
mcv wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expect the meat industry to lobby against being allowed to call it meat, if it didn't involve real living animals. In Europe they managed to get words like burger, nugget and sausage to only be legally applicable to meat. They'll definitely do the same for words for actual meat.

Which is ok and entirely valid regulation. It is ok to not want the industries to rewrite meanings of words.

What is a burger? If it looks like a burger and tastes like a burger I'm fine with calling it a burger. Nobody complains about halloumi burgers. Why is "coconut milk" OK, but "soy milk" is not? Blood sausage has nothing similar with the regular sausage. Hey, there are people who put pineapple on dough and call it "pizza"[1]. I agree that industries should not be able to intentionally mislead people, but informing customers was not the primary motivation behind those laws - protecting existing monopolies was.

[1] Relax, I'm joking.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#164

Post by eudamoniac »

wonderwonder wrote: post #13
SoftTalker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can replace the taste, appearance, and texture of a medium-rare rib eye with lab grown meat at a substantially cheaper price, we will.

Agree, as long as it's meat. Lab grown meat from cells is meat. The reason impossible never worked was becuase it wasn't meat. Very few people are going to trade meat for soy and vegetables

Yep. I mostly eat meat for the benefits to my athletic training. Plant-based protein is just inferior. I am also constantly aware that my eating meat is unethical, but prioritize my training over ethics at the moment. I would switch to decent tasting lab meat even at fairly high prices.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#165

Post by msm_ »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #149
aziaziazi wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a weird comparaison between one or two brand and "an industry". Let’s compare two ranch’s with… the global legumes industry !

On the topic of replacing meat with fake meat, yeah it kind of does invite comparison, because they are essentially entirely competing industries at that point

That was not the issue pointed by GP. They noted that the comparison was between two companies, a whole industry.

>That’s a weird comparaison between one or two brand and "an industry".

In other words, Impossible and Beyond are not the only companies in meat replacement space. They are probably the largest, but comparing them to the whole industry makes no sense.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#166

Post by preg_match »

bsoqk wrote: post #50
hn_submit wrote: post #48

The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks. They wanted to differentiate between natural and lab-grown versions with the former being much more expensive. But that train has left the station since there's little to no difference in quality between the two. In fact, I once predicted there'd be huge scams where lab-grown ones would be repackaged and sold a…

> The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks. Just like the luxury watches market ceased to exist when you could buy quartz watches for 10 bucks.

A luxury diamond and a lab grown diamond are equivalent. Well not always, lab grown are typically higher quality. The comparison doesn’t work.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#167

Post by jonstewart »

SoftTalker wrote: post #113
jonstewart wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully most people here getting ribeyes aren’t getting them from the same factory farms that supply McDonald’s and sell other cheap kinds of beef. A ribeye is an occasional luxury and best bought from the farmer.

Most people buy their ribeyes at the supermarket like they do all their other food.

Too bad. I get mine from the small town butcher/locker when I’m in the Midwest in summer, and the neighborhood farmer’s market on the east coast the rest of the year. A couple of ribeyes a year and I’m good, so I see them as an affordable luxury where I can pay for good prime meat from a short supply chain.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#168

Post by Loughla »

ninjalanternshk wrote: post #76
Loughla wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And there are a ton of companies that sell just loose stones, so you can take it to a locally owned shop for the ring and setting, thereby keeping more of the money in your own community.

Not to be this way but can you not go to a local jeweler and buy a ring with a lab-grown diamond in it, no assembly required?

My local jewelers don't carry lab grown diamonds. So you might be able to, you might not.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#169

Post by BurningFrog »

bastawhiz wrote: post #84
BurningFrog wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would describe it at showing how poor/unproductive the rest of Botswana's economy is. Or is the theory here that De Beers somehow keeps the part of the Botswanian economy they don't participate in poor/unproductive?

De Beers was founded by the guy whose colonial governance helped make the region as economically depressed as it was. When Debswana was founded, De Beers was taking something like 85% of the profits from Botswana's natural resources. That's like if I burned your house and farm down, then a few later I discovered oil on your land and offered to help you drill for it in exchange for a little over an eighth of the profi…

There may be a good argument for your assertions, but I don't think you're making it.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#170

Post by throw0101a »

hn_submit wrote: post #48

The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks. They wanted to differentiate between natural and lab-grown versions with the former being much more expensive. But that train has left the station since there's little to no difference in quality between the two. In fact, I once predicted there'd be huge scams where lab-grown ones would be repackaged and sold a…

> The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks.

Maybe. But the whole point was that diamonds were (marketed as) being special because they were rare and expensive, and so a status symbol. If they're so cheap as to put them in Kinder Eggs or Cracker Jack boxes, what's the point of having a diamond all?

Going forward people (or some class thereof) may move onto other gems that are still rare and cannot (yet?) be manufactured.

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