[quote]NateOrade wrote:
You douchebag and one where this place thinks of that it is to be troubled. To tighten sexual intercourse, because the legs to inconvenience, are the boring, because the characteristic where the person has been attached possessing and really we would like to fail with compilation of the friend, the fact that this thread your being attached with respect to the haughty attitude which you developed is made ruinous should stop.[/quote]
You crack me up.
[quote]
I’ll go further than “a whiff of attitude”. You overpaid for an item that has very little value outside of its industrial uses [/quote]
Wrong. When the stock market goes to hell, banks go belly-up and your stocks, bonds and paper are worth nothing - This is the only thing that will have trading value. STONES (mainly diamonds), and METAL (gold, silver and platinum). Sure, your property will have value but you can’t buy a loaf of bread with it either.
Yes, jewelry has a mark-up. Most everything you buy has a big mark-up. 300% is the norm - It’s called triple-key. Furniture has the biggest mark-up of all - as high as 700% Try to sell your 3,000 - 5,000 10 yr. old sofa on the used market. You might get $50 bucks in your yard sale.
Oh, BTW - The bigger the stone, the smaller the mark-up.
I think I’ll make an engagement ring out of tinfoil and sauerkraut.
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
De Beers’ guidelines (2-3 months pay)[/quote]
Ah marketing, where would we be without it? God bless consumerism and greed.
Assuming everyone is capable of determining for himself what he can afford to spend on a ring, I think the question should be what does the girl like? Does she wear much jewelry? Specifically, rings? Not everyone likes wearing them.
Also, an engagement ring calls attention to a woman’s financial status and private life. “Oh, I see you’re married, and to a man with a good bit of disposable income!” I think for some women that can create an uncomfortable intrusion of their private life into their professional one.
I don’t often wear my (modest) engagement ring. It twists on my fingers and distracts me visually. The other thing about it is that I work with a lot of poor people. Mine is a low paid field, so many of my coworkers are struggling as well. Although I wear clothes that are in some cases expensive (relative to the clothes of the people I work with) I keep them simple and assume no one is pricing my white blouse and black skirt. Diamonds, to me, cross an invisible line. Putting one on my hand so it’s prominent in every exchange seems tacky in that context.
But I’m not a jewelry wearer, really, so maybe it’s more that than anything else. Many of my friends have and love their nice engagement rings. I don’t think of them as more materialistic than I am, with my expensive laptop and the high-end running shoes I replace every six months. But again, I’m not waving those things around on my hand as I talk.
Aleksandr, you don’t have any wasteful spending habits? A penchant for microbrews or nice entertainment hardware?
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
Assuming everyone is capable of determining for himself what he can afford to spend on a ring, I think the question should be what does the girl like? Does she wear much jewelry? Specifically, rings? Not everyone likes wearing them.
Also, an engagement ring calls attention to a woman’s financial status and private life. “Oh, I see you’re married, and to a man with a good bit of disposable income!” I think for some women that can create an uncomfortable intrusion of their private life into their professional one.
I don’t often wear my (modest) engagement ring. It twists on my fingers and distracts me visually. The other thing about it is that I work with a lot of poor people. Mine is a low paid field, so many of my coworkers are struggling as well. Although I wear clothes that are in some cases expensive (relative to the clothes of the people I work with) I keep them simple and assume no one is pricing my white blouse and black skirt. Diamonds, to me, cross an invisible line. Putting one on my hand so it’s prominent in every exchange seems tacky in that context. For the same reason, I wear a Timex to work rather than the much more expensive watch my husband gave me for Christmas one year.
But I’m not a jewelry wearer, really, so maybe it’s more that than anything else. Many of my friends have and love their nice engagement rings. I don’t think of them as more materialistic than I am, with my expensive laptop and the high-end running shoes I replace every six months. But again, I’m not waving those things around on my hand as I talk.
Aleksandr, you don’t have any wasteful spending habits? A penchant for microbrews or nice entertainment hardware?
[/quote]
I am in the diamond business and have none, in fact I don’t own much jewelry at all. Does my income support it if I wished? Yes. Perhaps it’s akin to making the dounuts. Those who make them don’t neccesarily eat them. There isn’t much that “wows” me anymore. I prefer to invest in precious metal. I am often asked where my jewelry is though!
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
Aleksandr, you don’t have any wasteful spending habits? A penchant for microbrews or nice entertainment hardware?
[/quote]
Of course I do.
However, none that exist solely to signal my wealth.
[quote]Geminspector wrote:
I’ll go further than “a whiff of attitude”. You overpaid for an item that has very little value outside of its industrial uses
Wrong. When the stock market goes to hell, banks go belly-up and your stocks, bonds and paper are worth nothing - This is the only thing that will have trading value. STONES (mainly diamonds), and METAL (gold, silver and platinum). Sure, your property will have value but you can’t buy a loaf of bread with it either.
Yes, jewelry has a mark-up. Most everything you buy has a big mark-up. 300% is the norm - It’s called triple-key. Furniture has the biggest mark-up of all - as high as 700% Try to sell your 3,000 - 5,000 10 yr. old sofa on the used market. You might get $50 bucks in your yard sale.
Oh, BTW - The bigger the stone, the smaller the mark-up.
[/quote]
So you’re saying that they are a good investment, because when our entire society collapses, a luxury item with no practical purposes is going to be the only thing with trading value?
If you want to invest in something that will have value “when” our entire financial system collapses, buy guns and ammo. Or a farm. Or move to the forest and learn to live off of squirrel droppings.
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
Aleksandr, you don’t have any wasteful spending habits? A penchant for microbrews or nice entertainment hardware?
[/quote]
See that’s where he goes wrong, though. ‘Wasteful’ in this case is a rather subjective term.
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
You spent enough money to provide for a family for a year on a product that is entirely unproductive, and helps no one. The only utility it provides is that it signals your wealth (although it seems you do plenty of that, yourself).
But it isn’t surprising, given the ego jerk-off you just gave yourself.
By the way, you ought to look into how much folks with PhDs in business earn. Also look into how much therapists make.[/quote]
Haha, you crack me up dude. Talking about ego jerk-offs when you’re perched up there on your soap box, are ya?
[quote]Geminspector wrote:
I’ll go further than “a whiff of attitude”. You overpaid for an item that has very little value outside of its industrial uses
Wrong. When the stock market goes to hell, banks go belly-up and your stocks, bonds and paper are worth nothing - This is the only thing that will have trading value. STONES (mainly diamonds), and METAL (gold, silver and platinum). Sure, your property will have value but you can’t buy a loaf of bread with it either.
Yes, jewelry has a mark-up. Most everything you buy has a big mark-up. 300% is the norm - It’s called triple-key. Furniture has the biggest mark-up of all - as high as 700% Try to sell your 3,000 - 5,000 10 yr. old sofa on the used market. You might get $50 bucks in your yard sale.
Oh, BTW - The bigger the stone, the smaller the mark-up.
[/quote]
Who would even dream of spending $ 3000 to $ 5000 on a sofa?
No wonder people are so far in debt!
Alright I’m no where near engaging anyone(I’m 19). My love life is pretty much non exsistant. I’m like that guy where when a girl sees him they want him to be their new best gay buddy and he wants to kill himself because that was the last thing he wanted for the 5th time. But thats neither here nor there.
For all you guys making over $100K a year lets talk. I want your job.
i personally think wedding rings are a waste of $$$. (diamonds are actually quite plentiful, y’know.) been married before, never had a ring, never wanted one.
2-3 month’s salary can sure feed an awful lot of hungry kids.
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
By the way, you ought to look into how much folks with PhDs in business earn. Also look into how much therapists make.[/quote]
Just to stir the pot a bit, it’s funny you mention a PhD in business when you are discussing misallocations of resources. Not putting down anyone who has a PhD in business, I’m jes sayin, that’s all.
Also, giving expensive gifts is no less valuable than bright colors on a male bird, evolutionally speaking. Do bright feathers help the bird fly better? No, but they sure help pulling in the ladies.
DB
[quote]74 wrote:
Spent $16,000 on a 1.5 carat princess cut “ideal” cut, damn near perfect in all aspects, platinum ring.
Used bluenile.com, would again in a heartbeat, check the site out, very informative. Also, provides you with a sliding scale of the 4 C’s that allows you to see their inventory and also compare prices by changing different characteristics.
Would not go for such a high quality ring if I had it to do over again. Would stay closer to the range of imperfection of 10x magnification, I think mine is 100x magnification before you see any flaws. Lower clarity,more imperfections (although not visible to the eye) would have resulted in a larger ring, 2+ carats.
However, I will say my wife is constantly telling me about all the compliments she receives about her ring (still 5 years later).
As far as insurance goes, I pay about $110 a year to insure it for about $18,000.
For my ring, spent $60 at saltlakesilver.com, for a ring that I have only worn once, wedding day.[/quote]
Wow sounds like a very nice ring. Was thinking of getting the princess also with platinum!
From the bluenile.com site:
http://www.bluenile.ca/diamond_search.asp?track=dss&filter_id=1
I probably have a little less to spend than you (8-15k?) and “Ideal” cut sounds good. So what “Colour” grade and “Clarity” grade would you recommand? I was thinking of “G or H” for colour and “VS1-VS2” for clarity but have really no idea. Thanks
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
The misallocation of resources harms society. Without demand for useless products, the energy and labour used to manufacture, transport, and sell this product could have been instead used to produce something useful.
At the individual level, the money you used to make this purchase could have instead been used to purchase productive resources, awhich would have increased the amount of money you would have to spend on goods and services that aren’t useless.
But if you feel the marketing campaign to make diamond rings standard was so brilliant that it deserves to be rewarded, by all means, mismanage the resources you were lucky enough to get to control.[/quote]
Comrad Aleksandr,
STFU you communist provokator, this is Amerika not USSR.
[quote]NeelyDan wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
You spent enough money to provide for a family for a year on a product that is entirely unproductive, and helps no one. The only utility it provides is that it signals your wealth (although it seems you do plenty of that, yourself).
But it isn’t surprising, given the ego jerk-off you just gave yourself.
By the way, you ought to look into how much folks with PhDs in business earn. Also look into how much therapists make.
Haha, you crack me up dude. Talking about ego jerk-offs when you’re perched up there on your soap box, are ya?
[/quote]
Every single time he posts he acts like a complete self-righteous dickhead.
This went to hell in a hurry. De Beers is criminal and immoral. The value of diamonds is artificial. If everything goes to hell, who would have the money to pay for a ring if a loving bride wanted to sell it…
All this aside, one of the most touching moments I have witnessed was when two friends of mine celebrated their anniversary. They struggled for many years, and at one point had to hock their wedding set, but got her a cute but tiny sub. They also lived in a rented house because their credit was shit, but they loved the house they lived in. On the anniversary, he threw a party that he arranged and invited a big group. He gave her a decent gift and let her open all the others that we brought. At the end, he thanked us all for coming and retold their story and how much it meant to him when she stuck with him when his business was floundering. At that point, he dropped to his knee and asked her to do it all over again, and presented her with a ring that was even better than the one she wore previously, and in the bottom of the box was the signed and accepted offer to buy their house…They renewed their vows right there because one guest he invited was a priest.
[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
By the way, you ought to look into how much folks with PhDs in business earn. Also look into how much therapists make.
Just to stir the pot a bit, it’s funny you mention a PhD in business when you are discussing misallocations of resources. Not putting down anyone who has a PhD in business, I’m jes sayin, that’s all.[/quote]
I have no idea what you are saying.
[quote]
Also, giving expensive gifts is no less valuable than bright colors on a male bird, evolutionally speaking. Do bright feathers help the bird fly better? No, but they sure help pulling in the ladies.
DB[/quote]
A nice suit is a better analogy to bright feathers. By the time you’re buying a ring, you already have the girl. Unless to offer diamonds to random girls, hoping they’ll go out with you.
[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
De Beers is criminal and immoral. [/quote] Possibly.
[quote]The value of diamonds is artificial. If everything goes to hell, who would have the money to pay for a ring if a loving bride wanted to sell it…
[/quote]
The same could be said about most of the world’s money supplies, art, music, any collectibles, etc. As long as there is a secondary market for it, it will have real value. Such is the reality of luxury goods. Perceived value = real value.
DB