The only reason diamonds are valuable is because the DeBeers company has an almost complete vertical monopoly. This means they own the diamond mines (where they also exploit local laborers), the processing plants, the polishing and shaping business, everything. Pretty much every diamond you buy comes from them. Since they control the supply, they can charge whatever they want, so they create superficial scarcity and charge ridiculous prices.
That wouldn't bother me so much if nobody cared about diamonds, but that's the other half of it. People, especially women and rappers, are obsessed with diamonds. If you ask someone to marry you, and you DON'T give them the biggest diamond you can afford, you're considered an asshole. If Snoop Dogg gets you a big record deal, you go out and get diamonds stuck on your teeth to look like an asshole. In other words, diamonds are compulsory to most people.
So to sum it up, diamonds are only expensive because one company controls most of the supply, and people only really buy and want diamonds because of cultural traditions and pressures. I refuse to have anything to do with that. I'm not going to buy a diamond for my future wife just because I'm "supposed to," and I'm sure as hell not paying a month's salary for something that some company is artificially inflating the value of.
That wouldn't bother me so much if nobody cared about diamonds, but that's the other half of it. People, especially women and rappers, are obsessed with diamonds. If you ask someone to marry you, and you DON'T give them the biggest diamond you can afford, you're considered an asshole. If Snoop Dogg gets you a big record deal, you go out and get diamonds stuck on your teeth to look like an asshole. In other words, diamonds are compulsory to most people.
So to sum it up, diamonds are only expensive because one company controls most of the supply, and people only really buy and want diamonds because of cultural traditions and pressures. I refuse to have anything to do with that. I'm not going to buy a diamond for my future wife just because I'm "supposed to," and I'm sure as hell not paying a month's salary for something that some company is artificially inflating the value of.
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