Whats the deal with diamonds? Why do you dumb people pay ridiculous amounts of money for a stupid clear?

Question

rocks that people find in the ground? They get it for nothing then you pay thousands for it, talk about a scam, next thing they will bottle tap water and try to sell that to us? Especially you marriage religious types

a dumb hard rock.

Answer 1

I would disagree with a few things in regards to your question/statements.  The diamond industry as a whole pays hundreds millions of dollars into developing diamond mines.  You are right in the sense that diamonds bought from alluvial diggers/miners aren't anywhere close to what we pay in our market.  But, i'm not here to argue whether this is right or wrong, but rather this industry along with a lot of other "useless" industries give many people in 3rd world countries an opportunity to earn a living.  I'm not justifying it but this is a fact of life. Just like the clothes you wear is made from a laboror in a 3rd world country for pennies compared to what we pay for the finished product.  Yes conflict diamonds exist and that's a real shame on humanity, I do hope that human wars and struggles funded by mother natures sources, whether metals, gemstones, diamonds, etc will cease to exist one day.  Along with wars for political interests (Iraq?) But I have to say humans have always been drawn to beautiful things.  A diamond in reality is useless to a person yet we as a race desire them.  It can be said about beautiful people, luxury cars, fine watches, nice houses, branded clothing, fine dining etc.  And finally it just isn't a clear rock,  when it is cut by a master cutter it is breathtakingly beautiful not to mention mesmerizing. 

Answer 2

Actually I like the image of the bottled water. Brands like Evian do this trick daily as the relationship between retail price and cost is out of hand : over 40 : 1 ! The source gets them the water that is undistinguishable from the best tap water.

There are 3 major ways to obtain diamonds.
1. Mining in a pit mine, above or underground. This involves enormous investments ! The relationship is very different here from what you suggested. Rough estimate between 500 to 1000 million USD developing cost before mines start to produce anything.
2. Taking them of the ground or slightly under the surface in very eroded areas (rain forests in Middle Africa for example) : pure profit.
3. Taking them from the river beds and seashore : from small operations to huge ones as at the coast of Namibia.

Then you need very highly skilled staff to polish to ones you use as gems in jewelry, and a huge capital investment to run this business. This explains the cost and price of the diamonds.

Now, let's understand that most diamonds are used in industrial applications like high performance drills, saws, special surgical knives. The part that is clear enough so it might end up in jewelry is rather small.
Most tunnels you use were realized using diamond heads on the drills, the oilwells were reached in the same way ...

All rare objects on this human planet have been collected and valued as prised possessions, there is nothing new in that, it seems to be a human habit.

Answer 3

It's a lot worse than that.

African Conflict Diamonds are not something that you'd really want to give to anyone you loved but quite a lot of the diamonds on the market are conflict diamonds.

Personally I'd rather synthetic diamond take over the market (as they've already pretty much done for industrial diamonds).

Answer 4

Not only do they pay thousands for a stupid rock, people start wars and chop people's arms and legs off over them. I don't know how any sane person can look at a diamond and not get sick once they know what is going on in Africa.

Answer 5

Those ones are scams, but the Yahoo Lottery is for real. I just won it and I've already sent in my $20,000 lottery down payment. Any day Yahoo will be sending me a check for $52,678. The funny thing is, I don't even remember entering any lottery, but I must have done it when I was drunk.

Answer 6

admittedly i do have a piece of diamond jewelry but i can't tell the difference between it and cubic zirconia so it does seem like a huge waste of money. though at the time i recieved it, you could have knocked me over with a feather =p

now i'd rather have something else. something more thoughtful, that nobody died for, and less generic.

Answer 7

That's boggled my mind for years. The women I work with get all excited when someone brings in a jewelry catalog and they go on about how "beautiful" it all is.

Whatever. No amount of bling makes anyone more or less attractive, just weighed down.

Answer 8

besides being the hardest material on the planet and needing special equipment to shape, i do agree that there are better things to spend money on. and by the way tap water is better for you than bottle water.

Answer 9

Exactly, and diamonds aren't rare. Its just a controlled market to artificially inflate the price.

Answer 10

It's worse than a waste of money, it is terribly destructive to the earth and to the people that are exploited in the mining industry.