Yeah, I knew a dude who would eat at the Safeway almost every day and walk out without paying. He even talked to the security guards about how stealing is a problem, while eating his lunch. And Safeway's not as bad as the Diamond industry, but it's up there in the world of evil, so cheers to that dude I knew!

Diamonds don't have much intrinsic value. They fetch a very high price on the marketplace for two reasons:

(1) Because the monopolies which control the diamond trade intentionally limit supply, creating artificial scarcity and thus driving up prices.
(2) Because marketing. Diamonds have value because, back in the mid-20th century, television told people they had value. Diamonds were framed as a "luxury" good, and priced as a "luxury" good, and this is important because very often with luxury goods, customers pay higher prices *merely* for the sake of paying higher prices! Studies have actually been done on this - sellers can charge customers more for a product, and actually wind up selling more units of that product, because the higher pricetag imparts an air of exclusivity and quality. If I told you I had a ring for ten dollars, and a ring for ten thousand, you'd naturally assume that the ten thousand dollar ring is the "better" product, wouldn't you? High price can itself become a selling point.

Why do I bring this up? Well, the point here is that the jewelery this lady stole, probably isn't actually worth all that much to the diamond industry. It could be worth a lot to small shopkeepers and family-owned jewlers - they'll be eating the cost of the goods she's stolen, no doubt! But the diamond industry itself - De Beers, Alrosa, Argyle - as far as they're concerned, the goods she stole are practically worthless; they'll simply release some more diamonds from their stockpiles, and the world will move on.

Furthermore, her robberies could actually HELP the diamond industry, in that the shops she stole from will need to go and re-stock their inventories, eating a loss of many thousands of dollars in the process. From the perspective of a diamond *supplier*, her robberies are just sales, no different from a "legitimate" point-of-sales purchase.

With these points in mind, it's clear that her behavior presents no threat to the diamond industry, and Mr Binro, I think we may conclusively resolve our conflict of interest in the following manner:

Fuck this lady, she's an asshole.

That's a really good point. Like, I was talking to this guy at the bar the other night kind of complaining about how the Safeway wasn't open 24 hours anymore, not that I like to shop there, but the reason they close at 2AM now is because the bars close at 2:30, and they're basically staffless at that point in the morning. I've thought a million times "I'll bet I could just walk right outta here with these groceries" and that's exactly what people did with cases of beer.

But in the beer case, it's not a big deal. Beer's cheap and while I'm sure there are some business practices that are less than ethical with the big companies, it's not at all like the business practices in Sierra Leone. Plus bars usually just go to the store if they're out of a particular beer and just get more, selling it back at double the cost (without tip) so really this doesn't matter. But, if it wasn't a Safeway, but instead a small co-op that people were stealing beer from, that creates a ripple effect.

I don't know for sure what stores she stole from but I'm assuming a lot of them didn't have a good loss prevention team. And even Saks Fifth Avenue, as big as it was, is pretty much a thing of the past now. That's not her fault obviously, but it is food for thought.

I got caught stealing pretty recently, but it wasn't my fault. My dude and I were at the Dollar Tree and he found something and ran the fuck out the door, and I had to stop him before the loss prevention guys could get to him. We just left without paying. I went back the next day to apologize and they were like "naw dude this happens all the time" and I didn't have to pay!

I also kind of stole replacement earbuds from the apple store a few days ago; truth is I fucked them up on my own, but if you make up a decent story about how they broke they'll just give you a new pair just so you go away.

Ah, feels good to get that off my chest.