In the SO THE FUCK WHAT FILES

[Brian37]

I am really fucking sick of the scam that diamonds or gold or silver should be the prices they are. You cant eat "pretty". There are some pragmatic uses for those for tools, coins and sure, pretty ok, but that shit is still way fucking over priced. 

If diamonds or "precious metals" deserve the prices they have, there wouldn't be jewelry stores on every block of every city worldwide. It is a fucking monopoly and pricing scam and it does very little to solve issues of poverty or pollution. 

I wish my species would get it's fucking priorities in order. 

http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/19/investin...nd-lucara/

[Wyrd of Gawd]

It's much better to invest extra money in guns and ammo then when the crap hits the fan you can take what you need. You can't eat gold but you can eat the person who has gold.

[Brian37]

What is everyone's stupid narcissistic fetish with guns?

[MentalGiant]

I don't disagree about diamonds. DeBeers is a horrible monopoly that is hoarding diamonds to control market prices. Precious metals mining (especially platinum group metals), however, is prohibitively expensive and the cost gets passed onto the consumer, which only multiplies the farther down the supply chain it gets. The uses for precious metals is also far more widespread than the average person realizes. Jewelry makes up a relatively small portion of the precious metals market. Many areas of the world are also now putting strict environmental regulations on the industry so those costs are being passed on too. You also have to consider the fact things like jewelry have other factors beyond straight metals market pricing attached. Refining, alloying, labor in designing/assembling the piece, markup to the wholesaler, markup by the retailer and finally you, the end consumer is paying a whole lot of money for something that is small and serves no other purpose than adornment. What you don't realize is just how much the metals that don't end up in jewelry are making an impact (justifying their prices) in terms of scientific, technology and industrial applications.

[Chad32]

I heard once that diamons are not as rare as companies make them out to be, so they are really overpriced. Though I'm not sure about gold and silver. granted you can't east minerals or paper, but it's more convenient than carting animals and produce to the market. I'll trade you a goat for a barrel of corn. I'll give you three bushels of apples for a cow.

[vorlon13]

I have a diamond saw blade for my Makita, and damn, I don't use it very often, but when I do, it gets the job done.

I had a bad area of concrete in the garage, and I cut it out a few years ago, and then patched the area, and while it might not have been a real pleasant experience (cement dust is awful), I can't get over how nice the patch turned out, and since I already had the diamond blade, my cost for materials was like $5, and I was able to do the repair in several hours over a couple of days.

As for bling, I can't say 'my tribe' is too much into it, however it's my understanding the women folk are rather partial to it and keeping them placated seems to be a popular past time of many hetero mens.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Value is determined by the market. You don't have to like it. It's great that you can post about it and get these feelings off you chest ... but human nature isn't going to change because one asshole online had a temper tantrum.

I'm sure an internet rant will solve the problem, though. Good show!

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Diamonds, gold, silver, platinum, and so forth are priced absolute correctly - any good or service is worth exactly what people are willing to pay for it. Also, bear in mind that these things command high prices only for their luxury applications. The cost of the weight of diamonds in vorlon's saw blade isn't the cost of the same weight of diamonds in a bit of jewelry.


I'm not sure of the purpose of your screed - are you upset because you want to buy a solid gold statue of ABBA and can't afford it?

Boru

[Homeless Nutter]

I believe diamonds are essentially a scam. Or at least a racket. The mining of diamonds in the 20-th century has been monopolized by DeBeers Group and they've been effectively controlling the prices worldwide, by limiting supply. In the 80's the group's market share was as high as 90%. It fell to 35% recently.

Diamonds used for tools and industry are mostly artificial diamonds. Because they're actually better in terms of hardness, thermal conductivity and electron mobility. The natural ones are just eye-candy for people, who are susceptible to marketing campaigns.

Try selling a diamond you just bought. You'll find out how much it's really worth...

Precious metals are a bit of a different story, because they're elements, there's finite supply of them, we do actually have use for them other than making shiny things and we can't as of yet synthesize suitable substitutes.

Although apparently we can now extract gold from sh*t, so...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32026636

[Brian37]

I heard once that diamons are not as rare as companies make them out to be, so they are really overpriced. Though I'm not sure about gold and silver. granted you can't east minerals or paper, but it's more convenient than carting animals and produce to the market. I'll trade you a goat for a barrel of corn. I'll give you three bushels of apples for a cow.

Heard? Of course they are not as rare as the industry makes them out to be. Jewelry stores are like holy houses of worship, 7-11s and reality TV, plentiful.

Humans are the only species to create a barter system. Before the first currency the money was food and clothing. I don't expect our social species to scrap bartering. I do however hate the global greed.