The Iced Out Age
January 01, 2008
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In my last blog post I went into some of the reasons why I think diamonds are going to get cheap. In this post I will cover what I think will happen when they do.
An enduring feature of our culture is that a fad starts in the upper crust of society and works its way down the economic ladder over a period of years. As it does work its way down the upper crust abandons it and finally in a very much cheapened form it ends up in the lowest economic tier.
Currently diamonds are still relatively expensive, so the hip-hop fad of putting diamonds on eveything (called "icing out") is still confined to those who can afford to spend hundreds of thousands on jewelry and the like. MTV and the awards shows regularly show examples of this.
But what happens as diamonds get as cheap as rhinestones? At first the lower upper class (the new money, not the old money who think flashy things are tacky) and the upper middle class will start put diamonds on all sorts of stuff. So diamond encrusted glasses, watches, jewelry and maybe even small appliances will be common. As diamonds get cheaper and cheaper the lower middle and working class will buy diamond encrusted stuff. This will probably include cars, clothes, skateboards and all sorts of stuff. Meanwhile the upper classes will conclude that sparkly stuff is tacky and will probably head towards a plain but expensive look.
Eventually the iced out fad will have worked it way down to the lowest tier and will be abandoned. There will be really a lot of stuff with diamonds on it thrown out. Now diamonds are stable under normal conditions for geologic epochs. So far future archeologists (when current doings are utterly forgotten) will wonder about the layer with all the small faceted diamonds in it and make up theories as to how they came about. Those theories will be wrong.
Happy New Year All
Chris - still wants his 1kg flawless diamond crystal desk toy
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