The big ones still make for excellent "portable wealth" when you're in that kind of situation. But as middlemen go, jewelers make realtors look like saints.
Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
201–210 of 270 posts
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
> artificial in a human machine in a lab - and the other by raw natural forces in the wild What do you suppose is the value that distinguishes these two processes? The story? Or is it the persistence of the naturalistic fallacy, surfacing in all sorts of places and in all kinds of minds including those one would expect are habitually vigilant against what is essentially a generalized form of superstition.
“Artificial” usually isn’t a positive thing when the word comes up. We’re often told to avoid artificial sweeteners, artificially hydrogenated oils, artificially enhanced flavors, artificial dyes and colorants… and that’s just in food and beverage, and totally ignoring the luxury image of natural hardwood instead of wood veneer, natural glass/crystal instead of plastic. Diamonds are just about the only thing I can th…
A lab-created diamond and a "natural" diamond are equals. They are both diamonds, identical chemically and physically.
An artificial diamond would be something like cubic zirconia.
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#203title is clickbaity. HN title should improve on it. This is about rough cut diamonds under 2 carats. the price is down due to popularity of synthetic diamonds of these sizes. retail price of a finished product hasn't felt it yet, and may not.
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#204I've bought a number of lab grown diamonds. For anything at 1 carat or under, you'd be a fool to buy a mined diamond. I really want to buy a lab-grown tennis bracelet, but no luck yet finding one from a reputable vendor.
why don't you just buy the stones and have the bracelet made?
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#205I just got engaged. When we looked at rings, the jeweler asked my fiancé if she wanted natural or synthetic, and she responded “I don’t want a blood diamond!!” Of course, mined diamonds aren’t blood diamonds, but her impression was still they were a little ickier. The jeweler told me that one reason to get a natural diamond was that the prices of lab grown diamonds had been falling, whereas natural hasn’t as much, so…
> so the ring would hold more value
A nice little white lie by omission anyway, as the resale value of a diamond drops up to 50% when it leaves the store! If you were planning for an investment, you'd be better off looking elsewhere.
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#206Too bad we can’t use virtual NFT engagement rings mined specially with high carbon footprint with the gas fees donated to the babies of divorce lawyers.
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to be negative, but I think the conventions around marriage needs to be redone alongside all the other changes around marriage. To wit, the ability of a woman to divorce you and receive alimony and child support for basically the rest of her life. It's not clear to me what reason a rational person has for NOT getting divorced after enough time has elapsed that alimony is possible. Roughly 50% of marriages end i…
> It's not clear to me what reason a rational person has for NOT getting divorced after enough time has elapsed that alimony is possible. I mean, assuming that you like your spouse, it's a perfectly rational decision to stay with them despite it being possible to make money by leaving them. It's economics-paper level sociopathy to suggest that "I could maximize my personal income by divorcing the person I love" is an…
>It's economics-paper level sociopathy
Indeed. Ask my ex-wife (an economist) how that worked out for her.
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#208I just got engaged. When we looked at rings, the jeweler asked my fiancé if she wanted natural or synthetic, and she responded “I don’t want a blood diamond!!” Of course, mined diamonds aren’t blood diamonds, but her impression was still they were a little ickier. The jeweler told me that one reason to get a natural diamond was that the prices of lab grown diamonds had been falling, whereas natural hasn’t as much, so…
Sorry to be negative, but I think the conventions around marriage needs to be redone alongside all the other changes around marriage. To wit, the ability of a woman to divorce you and receive alimony and child support for basically the rest of her life. It's not clear to me what reason a rational person has for NOT getting divorced after enough time has elapsed that alimony is possible. Roughly 50% of marriages end i…
In many places (and all the ones where I've lived) it is the state that determines that you are married and not the couple. You may try to improve your odds with a prenup, but according to my friends that have tried, it doesn't offer much protection.
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strategy letter five says to commodify your complements, not substitutable goods https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
This was written in 2002 and includes a warning to Sun about Java commoditising hardware: “When the music stops, where are you going to sit down?” That was… prescient. Oracle acquired Sun in 2009-2010 and notably Oracle is a software company that benefits from the commoditisation of hardware, unlike Sun. Java byte code portability is great for Oracle, but was a strategic mistake for Sun.
It's one of my all time favorites
Grove talks about six forces:
• Power vigor competence of competitors
• Power vigor competence of suppliers
• power vigor competence of customers
• Power vigor competence of potential competitors
• Force of complementors
(Lol why didn't I write down the sixth in my notes?)
And these are all super important for business analysis, but complements is somehow overlooked in casual study
Re: Diamond prices are in free fall in one key corner of the market
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I pitched this to my wife a few years back. She insisted she’d rather have a smaller natural diamond. It makes no sense to me. Shiny carbon is shiny carbon to me. There’s no real logic in it. But given it’s a status symbol that derives its value from its rareness, I suppose it’s no different than a Luis Vutton or a Rolex. It’s not about the function, it’s about the fact that you can afford one. I hate that mentality,…
The difference would be, that one was made artificial in a human machine in a lab - and the other by raw natural forces in the wild. There is no practical value in jewelry anyway, it is a status symbol and the context of coming from the wild extracted under wild conditions (and maybe violently, ooh, blood diamonds, how exiting, erm shocking) has of course a higher symbolic value. So a artificial made one would be con…
> that one was made artificial in a human machine in a lab - and the other by raw natural forces in the wild.
> ... has of course a higher symbolic value.
To some people, others of us think that it's frickin amazing what can be done with machines in a lab, and that the sheer ingenuity and advanced tech used to make that lab-created gem is awesome.
Anyone can dig shiny rocks out of the dirt.