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# Devaluing diamonds
- URL: https://larrysalibra.com/devaluing-diamonds/
- Published: 2026-08-27T11:49:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T11:49:54.000Z
- Author: Larry Salibra
- Tags: markets, day-49, daily

The other day, a friend of mine excitedly told me about how one can buy absolutely massive lab grown diamonds in Shenzhen for very cheap. And then she showed off a massive, sparkling diamond on her finger and bragged about its very cheap price.

Sometime after that, I met someone that said they were in "fine jewelry." I know very little about jewelry beyond what I'd recently learned about lab-grown diamonds, so I asked the fine jewelry expert if she sold those. She looked visibly uncomfortable. I was a bit worried that I'd said something wrong and possibly insulted her. She went on to say no, of course she does not deal in lab diamonds and then went on to tell me about how she has access to pieces from this and that famous designer. Not knowing anything about jewelry, let alone fine jewelry, this didn't impress so much as confuse me.

Another day, I met someone who told me they sold luxury cars. I asked if they sold any of the luxury Chinese EVs in the market like the massive luxury Nio ES9 EV SUV I'd test driven a few weeks ago. This time, I too got a similar reaction. No, we don't sell EVs, only LUXURY cars. Knowing a bit more about cars than jewerly, I pushed back saying that EVs are now among the best cars and some of them are very luxurious. The response I got was, "EVs are like riding in microwaves, they're poorly made and break easily and we wouldn't ever think of selling them." Those were of course some pretty big and ridiculous claims. Surely some EVs might be poorly made, but all of them certainly aren't. And I'm not really sure how to address the microwave claim.

Anyways, I realized what was going on here. Both of these people were in the business of selling physical products as proxy for status. The status associated with their products was connected to the fact that their products - diamonds and traditional luxury cars - were, once, very expensive. This meant that only the richest could afford them. 

But thanks largely to Chinese manufacturing, many people can now afford EVs that have all the luxury build and features of traditional luxury vehicles. And they can also now buy massive, absolutely perfect diamonds for very little money.

The mass market production of what were previously very exclusive goods is resulting in the decline of the status of those goods. And this threatens the livelyhood of vendors that have built a business around selling these products as status.