Japan: Diamond Engagement Rings A Luxury Of The Past

The Globe and Mail:

To 29-year-old Tsutomu Tada and his bride-to-be, an expensive diamond ring just seemed like a waste of money, especially in these tough economic times.

Read the whole story: The Globe and Mail

Comments

[loki]

Debeers still controls over 70% of the diamond market. They horde and manipulate the market and have been for over 100 years. One reason they still cant legally do business in the USA. They even tried it a few years back and had to run out quickly after investing millions in stand alone stores here. Anti Trust case is still pending against them from many decades past, and they havent changed enough to get it removed. Diamonds should not be nearly as expensive as they are. Its companies such as Debeers who manipulate the markets, and others in the industry who play along to keep their profits very high that do this. What does the miner actually make off this besides poor treatment and less to feed his family on for an 18 hour work day? What does Debeers make by manipulating the market? Its basically as if Jim Cramer was controlling the diamond industry.

[ie]

Sounds like a good thing to me. I knew my mother would leave her diamond ring to me (which had been her mother's) so I told my husband not to bother when we married. My niece already has her great aunt's ring, and eventually I will pass mine on to her, also. I see no sense in perpetuating the tradition of buying rings to show your financial status and contributing to such a false, corrupt and destructive system.

Sadly, some people are brainwashed into reading so much more into something that just doesn't matter. A store employee stopped one day upon seeing my ring (the stone is pretty large),and said "WOW--somebody REALLY loves you". Funny, I didn't think the size of my diamond had anything to do with how much I was loved by anyone. I can think of plenty of other ways to judge how cherished I am.