Diamond News Archives

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References

1. ^{^} Skip to main content (www.zerohedge.com)

On March 5th, exactly 11 years to the day that De Beers Canada took control of operations at Victor Mine, the final haul truck brought the last load of ore from the pit to mark the end of mining activities at Ontario’s first and only diamond mine.

The honour of driving the last truck went to Nancy Wesley, of Kashechewan First Nation. She worked at Victor for 11 years, as a haul truck driver, dozer operator and production drill operator. “Last haul truck out of Victor Mine,” Nancy called over the radio. At the top of the ramp, two dozen colleagues gathered to send her off.

Forecast to produce six million carats during its life, the mine has already surpassed eight million carats thanks to a record 935,000 carats recovered during 2018 alone, 58 percent higher than the 2018 forecast. Victor will continue to process stockpiled ore until early May.

“That is something really special,” said Brian Kilbride, Senior Mining Manager, at an emotional final toolbox meeting with the mining team after the last ore was hauled from the pit. Kilbride has worked at Victor since before it went into operation. “I’m extremely proud of what we have been able to accomplish in that pit and I think everybody has gained a lot of great skills that you can take anywhere in this country.”

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March 27, 2019

There is nothing intrinsically profitable about either robotics or AI.

At the request of colleague/author Douglas Rushkoff (his latest book is Team Human^[1]), I'm publishing last week's Musings Report, which was distributed only to subscribers and patrons of the site.)

The core assumption of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and other plans to redistribute wealth and income more broadly is that the world is becoming wealthier, and so the pool of income and wealth that can be taxed is always expanding.

This pool of available wealth and income is so vast, we're assured, that taxing the super-wealthy will not really dent their wealth or the economy as a whole.

But what if the world is rapidly becoming poorer in every important sense? What if the decline in the standard of living of the bottom 90% of households that I've often addressed is not simply the result of the top 10% taking a greater share of the output (gains), but of the entire pie shrinking?

I believe the steady decline of the purchasing power of labor--the source of most households' income--is not just the result of way income is distributed, but of a steadily diminishing pool of real-world wealth.

We must start any discussion of total wealth/income by asking: what are we measuring with currencies such as dollars? What's not being measured?

As often noted in my writings, we optimize what we measure, and so since we measure financial accounts embedded in markets, we maximize the accumulation of currency and measure what it buys in markets.

But as I've explained in my books, markets only price goods...

Virtual Diamond Boutique (VDB), a sourcing and trading app for the jewelry industry, has added lab-grown diamonds (LGDS) to its product categories. The LGD products will be segregated from mined diamonds, but will offer all the visual and technical search, buy, hold, and memo features of the VDB platform.

“This may be viewed as a controversial move by some in the jewelry industry,” said Tanya Nisguretsky, President of VDB. “But we didn’t do it to be controversial. We made the decision to offer lab-grown because so many retailers are offering this product category to an increasingly interested consumer. And we want to help our customer base make thoughtful, informed decisions about the products they offer. That’s what the VDB platform does best – it informs and facilitates a higher quality sourcing process.”

The LGD category on the VDB app is separated from mined diamonds. When users open the app, they will now see four categories: diamonds, color gemstones, finished jewelry, and lab-grown. To date, 11 LGD suppliers have signed up with VDB, and more than 4,800 LGDs are  available on the app.

We thought it was important to separate lab-grown in the app, similar to the way retailers should  be careful to segregate their lab and mined diamond inventories in the store,” said Tanya, “This is an important discipline all jewelry businesses carrying both lab and mined should follow, and we decided to emulate that best business practice in the digital environment as well.”
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