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In a market economy supply and demand are important because
History of de beers diamond company
History of de beers diamond company
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Statement: “The price of diamonds is too high.”
The diamond cartel is the most successful and long-lasting cartel in history. The cartel created a scarcity for diamond and stabilized the prices at a high level. This essay will be discussing the validity of the statement with reference to the market of the diamond industry, history of the diamond cartel, how the price of diamonds is determined, and the implications thereof.
“A cartel is a group of firms acting together…to limit output, raise prices, and increase economic profit.” (Parkin et al., 2013:312) The diamond cartel formed when diamonds were discovered in South Africa. This discovery, in 1870, brought a rush of prospectors to South Africa to search for alluvial diamonds. The search for diamonds expanded to volcanic pipes. Cecil Rhodes’s initial involvement was renting water pumps to miners. Rhodes saw the potential of the diamond market and reinvested his returns from renting water pumps into buying diamond land claims. Rhodes organized the mining operations and, by 1873, begun to form the cartel, De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. By 1890, De Beers had complete control of the diamond mines in South Africa. (Spar, 2006:197) (Barmecha, 2007:9)
The cartel was formed as a result of a demand-supply problem that would’ve occurred due to this discovery of diamonds. The supply of diamonds increased and this had an adverse effect on the scarcity of diamonds. The following diagrams give an idea of what happened to the price and value of diamonds.
The increase in the supply of diamonds as a result of the discovery, as seen above in the rightward shift of the blue supply curve to the red supply curve, resulted in a decrease in the price and value of diamonds, ceteris paribus.
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... Scholtz, F. & Thompson, K. 2013. Economics: Global and Southern African Perspectives. 5th ed. Cape Town: Pearson Education South Africa (pty) Ltd.
Spar, D.L. 2006. Markets: Continuity and Change in the International Diamond Market. The Journal of Economic Perspectives. 20(3):195-208. Available at: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uct.ac.za/stable/pdfplus/30033674.pdf?acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true
Vogelsang, I. 2005. The International Diamond Cartel. [Industrial Organization with Applications to Agriculture and Natural Resources Lecture notes]. University of California, Berkeley. Available at: http://are.berkeley.edu/~sberto/debers.pdf [Accessed: 2014, April 16].
Zimnisky, P. 2013. A Diamond Market No Longer Controlled By De Beers. Available at: http://www.kitco.com/ind/Zimnisky/2013-06-06-A-Diamond-Market-No-Longer-Controlled-By-De-Beers.html [Accessed: 20 April 2014].
A classic example of a monopoly that arises due to the possession of a resource, such as a diamond company.
Beith, Malcolm. “The Current State of Mexico’s Many Drug Cartels.” Insight Crimes. n.p., 25 Sep.
During John D. Rockefeller’s financial career in The Gilded Age, he used many cutthroat practices to ensure that local competitors would not challenge and he would have control over the market of oil with his Standard Oil Company. In order to make sure he controlled the oil market, he used what was known as horizontal integration. This name became the label for the process of eliminating any potential competition from the market that one wishes to succeed in. In order to establish a virtual monopoly over the oil market, Rockefeller used clever strategies to do so. John Rockefeller used “his firm's superi...
Priscilla. “The World Economy and Africa.” JSpivey – Home – Wikispaces. 2010. 29 January 2010. .
Final contribution of de beers to the diamond pipeline is the promotion of diamond jewelry for the industry; through advertising campaigns developed from extensive market research; trade promotional activities and jewelry design competitions
The CFDC will continue to campaign and inform people on how to make sure that their purchase is conflict free and to gain support from the diamond trade in educating consumers. With the help of these organizations and many others, it will help save the lives of millions from violence or death. Works Cited The Conflict-Free Diamond Council. 2004.
It’s hard to imagine that a mineral could be fueling wars and funding corrupt governments. This mineral can be smuggled undetected across countries in a coat pocket, then be sold for vast amounts of money. This mineral is used in power tools, parts of x-ray machines, and microchips but mostly jewelry. Once considered the ultimate symbol of love, the diamond has a darker story. "Blood" diamonds or "conflict" diamonds are those mined, polished, or traded in areas of the world where the rule of law does not exist. They often originate in war-torn countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, and Côte d'Ivoire were rebels use these gems to fund genocide or other questionable objectives. Even with a system known as the Kimberly process which tracks diamonds to prevent trade of these illicit gems, infractions continue as the process is seriously flawed. The continuation of the blood diamond trade is inhuman, and unethical, and in order to cease this illicit trade further action to redefine a conflict diamond, as well as reform to the diamond certification prosess is nessasary.
This relates back to Congo, where violence spurred by ethnic rivalries is due to local groups’ desire to make money by getting into the extractive industries. In another example, Newmont, an American company, mines Ghanaian gold and pays the government part of the profits. Here, Burgis shined the spotlight on an environmental issue: the sodium cyanide spill in Kwamebourkrom that killed aquatic life and posed hazardous living conditions for locals (Burgis, 134). Finally, in the last few chapters, Burgis touched on Cecil John Rhodes’ legacy as the founder of De Beers, blood diamonds, imperialism, and violence carried out by local governments and mining companies in order to protect their interests.
Deep within African mines, elusive diamonds lay enveloped in the Earth’s crust. Possessing much influence, beauty, and tension, nature’s hardest known substance causes parallel occurrences of unity and destruction on opposite sides of the globe. Diamonds, derived from the Greek word "adamas", meaning invincible, are formed deep within the mantle, and are composed entirely from carbon. Moreover, only under tremendous amounts of heat and pressure can diamonds form into their preliminary crystal state. In fact, diamonds are formed approximately 150km- 200km below the surface and at radical temperatures ranging from 900-1300 C°. When these extremes meet, carbon atoms are forced together creating diamond crystals. Yet how do these gems, ranking a ten on Moh’s hardness scale, impact the individual lives of millions of people besides coaxing a squeal out of brides-to-be? These colorless, yellow, brown, green, blue, reddish, pink, grey and black minerals are gorgeous in their cut state, but how are these otherwise dull gems recognized and harvested? Furthermore, how and why is bloodshed and violence caused over diamonds in Africa, the supplier of approximately 65% of the world’s diamonds? (Bertoni) The environmental, social, and economic impact of harvesting, transporting, and processing diamonds is crucial because contrary to popular belief, much blood has been spilled over first-world “bling”.
Santarossa, B. (2004, January 13). Diamonds: Adding lustre to the Canadian economy. Retrieved November 06, 2017, from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2004008-eng.htm
Concentration of wealth. Profits from successful enterprises end up in private, often foreign, hands instead of being available for the common good.
iii. India dominates the world’s cut and polished diamonds (CPD) market. In value terms, the country accounts for approximately 55 percent of global polished diamond market and nearly 9 percent of the jewellery market. According to GJEPC's provisional estimate, cut and polished diamonds registered 19.06 percent growth in exports at US$ 7.11 mn.
In “ “Blood Diamonds” and Africa’s Armed Conflicts in the Post – Cold War Era, “ Orogun (2004) said that diamonds are referring as “clean stones”. This article explains about the black market is really happening in African. I am using this article to support how the black market of diamond trades is still not regulated, and they defined it as “licit” trade.
The film marker is trying to raise awareness of the illicit conflict diamond trade and reinforcing the Kimberley process1 and showing how it will stem the flow of conflict diamonds. This is successful mainly due to the public outburst after the movie. The great impact of the movie has caused diamond companies like De Beers2 to start a pre-emptive PR (public relationship) campaign, even before the movie was released to inform people that their diamonds are conflict-free.
In this project, we attempt to find out the causes for this price rise, the trends of the rise and the effects that this rise has had on us.