http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/10/60II/main616666.shtml
Tasha mentioned the cost of diamonds this week, and it got me thinking about the new technology that is revving up machine-made production. I first heard about it through my pal Carrington, who expects the market to be flooded with them, driving the price of “real” diamonds down. The diamond cartel must expect this too, ’cause they’re up to their usual slimy-handed tricks, making a media push about the “emotional value” of a rock that’s been blasted out of the ravaged earth by a low-paid, low-respected worker:
But Jerry Ehrenwald, president of the International Gemological Institute, one of the largest diamond-grading labs in the country, says man-made stones don’t hold a candle to what nature creates.
“They are real synthetic diamonds. They’re cooked. They’re heated. They’re put under pressure. They’re made by man,” says Ehrenwald.
“And when one considers a diamond, there’s two points. There’s the scientific end of it, and then there’s the emotional end of it. Will a person be as happy with something that’s made in a laboratory as opposed to something that took so long to come to us as a gift of nature?”
It’d be worth decimating the price of diamonds just to see smarmy twits like Jerry Ehrenwald in the unemployment lines.