The Color Purple

Memorable quote (s) from the movie:

Shug (Margaret Avery): More than anything God love admiration.

Celie (Whoopi Goldberg): You saying God is vain?

Shug (Margaret Avery): No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the colour purple in a field and don't notice it.

Celie (Whoopi Goldberg): You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the bible?

Shug (Margaret Avery): Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention... except walk?

Shug (Margaret Avery): Oh, yeah, this field feels like singing!

The Book Of Diamonds

By Joan Younger Dickinson
Avenel Books / Crown Publishers
1965

Avenel Books writes:

Diamonds have dazzled every age and society of mankind since before the days of Alexander the Great. For centuries the big rocks were jealously hoarded by the Indian Moguls, then bought and traded for fabulous sums by the crowned heads of Europe; in more recent times, they have found their way into the possessions of wealthy individuals and famed museums.

Today, as any bride knows, diamonds are no longer solely the prerogative of the rich and royalty. Gem diamonds are prized by millions for their romance, their special status, and their investment value. Industrial diamonds are indispensably keeping the wheels of world industry turning. On the current market the values of diamonds are booming.

Never before has the whole story of diamonds been told so dramatically and illustrated so profusely as in this new volume. From the first diamonds every discovered, probably in the Golconda mines of India, the author traces their history and lore, through the Brazilian diggings to the South African diamond rush and the development of the De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., who presently handle eighty percent of the world’s diamonds. Dramatic step-by-step photographs show the process of mining the modern diamond and the intricacies how it is cut and faceted.

Here are the stories of the most famous and infamous diamonds of all times: the Koh-i-noor now in the Tower of London, the Hope in our own Smithsonian Institution, the Regent in the Louvre, the Orloff in the Kremlin, the cleaved and faceted Cullinan adorning the British Crown Jewels, as well as many which have mysteriously vanished, such as the Florentine, the Pigott, and the Stewart. The United States can boast of several famous diamonds found in Murfreesboro, Arkansas; the Uncle Sam and the Star of Arkansas.

Diamonds have played their dazzling roles in American fashion among millionaires and working girls alike. The author tells this story from then embryonic jewelry stores along New York’s Maiden Path in the 1700s to the twentieth-century plush establishments along Fifth Avenue.

But this book is for more than a story of diamonds; it is also a practical guide for anyone who owns a diamond or plans to buy one. It explains and illustrates for the uninitiated the different diamond cuts, the role of carats, and how to buy diamonds for sentiment, for beauty, for show, for flawlessness, or for investment. To the prospective bridegroom and his fiancée, the author offers the accepted etiquette and practical advice on buying the diamond engagement ring and answers the specific questions they are most likely to ask, including how to clean and care for her ring. For students of gemology there is a large, informative glossary of diamond terms.

The Book Of Diamonds is illustrated with many old engravings of diamond mining, reproductions of museum painting, photographs of diamonds being mined and cut, famous diamonds in their present settings, plus a choice collection of award winning traditional and modern diamond pieces: rings, bracelets, brooches, pins, earclips, watches, and tiaras. Everyone who thrills to the diamond’s matchless brilliance will find this an enjoyable and thoroughly worthwhile book to own—along with the diamond that is forever.

About the author
Joan Younger Dickinson began her writing career as a reported in New York for United Press International. For more than a decade she was staff writer and an associate editor of the Ladies Home Journal. Author and editor of several books on social history, she worked in Istanbul, Antwerp, Amsterdam, London, and New York studying the diamond before completing this book.

The Bottom Of The Pyramid

C.K. Prahalad, author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid writes:

The bottom of the pyramid is comprised of 5 billion underserved and unserved people. It is not a monolith--there are many demographic layers within it--and it's not just the poorest of the poor. But I'm not interested in the pseudo-efficiency of trying to precisely measure poverty. I'm interested in business innovations that will bring the BOP (bottom of the pyramid) into the market-driven economy.

Opticon

Nearly all emeralds are treated with a liquid or resin after cutting. The most popular filler is a synthetic polyester epoxy resin called Opticon. Opticon is nearly transparent and light amber in color. The refractive index is approximately 1.545. Treaters may use green Opticon to improve the color of emeralds without proper disclosure. Opticon may turn yellow after many months/years. With some training, proper magnification and comparison stones you should be able to detect dispersion flashes, trapped gas bubbles, and unique texture (s) inside the stone. All treatments should be disclosed at all levels of the distribution chain. If you are doubtful have it checked by a reputed gem testing laboratory.

Throwing Good Money After Bad

Here is an interesting article on money and its unique phenomenon in the real world.

Robert Kiyosaki writes:

All booms eventually go bust. We all remember the stock market crash of 2000, and most of us remember the real estate crash after the implementation of the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Today, many people are anticipating another real estate crash.

Unfortunately, despite our understanding of booms and inevitable busts, it's always near the top of a boom that "dumb money" buys in. Currently, this has set the scene for a potential market bust of which few people are aware. I'll describe it today's column, and advise how best to prepare in my next column.

Express-Lane Inspiration
About a year ago, I wrote a Yahoo! Finance column warning readers that the real estate boom was over. How did I forecast the end of the boom? I got my hot tip from the cashier at my local Safeway supermarket.

While she was tallying the cost of my apples, broccoli, and steaks, she handed me her new real estate agent's card and invited me to call her for my next real estate investment. Moments later, I was home writing that column. As my rich dad used to say, "When dumb money chases smart money, the party's over." Needless to say, many real estate agents and investors wrote me nasty notes.

I'm not a hundred-percent certain where things are going today. Most economists are forecasting a strong economy, but economists worry me more than newly minted real estate agents. Most seem to be happy that inflation is in check; when I hear that inflation is in check, I begin to think about deflation, and as most of us know, deflation is much, much, worse than inflation.

An Inconvenient Truth
In the simplest terms, inflation occurs when there' too much money in the system. On the flip side, deflation occurs when there are too few dollars in circulation. When that happens, prices start to fall. For example, in inflationary times, prices of houses go up. In deflationary times, prices of houses come down. If prices of houses begin to drop too fast right now, it could be 1986 all over again.

I wrote a column in 2005 about how I love debt and my credit cards. The trouble is that most people do. Today, you can qualify for a loan to buy a house simply if you're alive and breathing. The strong economy we've been experiencing for years has thus been built on dumb money -- in addition to smart money -- borrowing more and more. Even the U.S. government has had a field day borrowing money to do such things as fight a war and attempt to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan rather than rebuild our country. And the inconvenient truth about debt is that it has to be paid back.

A Certain Ratio
For the next two years, I'm cautioning people to watch their ratios between good debt and bad debt, and keep liquid reserves such as cash, gold, or silver.

Good debt is debt that makes you rich. An example of good debt is the debt on the apartment houses I own. That debt is good only as long as there are tenants to pay my mortgages. If tenants stop paying their rent, my good debt turns into bad debt.

Most people don't have good debt -- all they have is bad debt. Bad debt is debt that makes you poorer. I count the mortgage on my home as bad debt, because I'm the one paying on it. Other forms of bad debt are car payments, credit card balances, or other consumer loans.

On our home, my wife, Kim, and I keep a 25 percent debt-to-equity ratio. In other words, our debt is 25 percent of the home's value. Unfortunately, many people have an 80 percent or higher debt-to-equity ratio. That means the debt on their home is 80 percent and their equity is only 20 percent.

On our investment properties, we carry a higher debt-to-equity ratio. To protect ourselves, we have cash reserves to cover the expenses of the properties. For example, in case all the tenants leave and no one is left to pay the mortgage and expenses, we have separate funds for each property, with enough liquidity -- i.e. cash, stocks, and bonds -- to carry the building for a year. Unfortunately, the dumb-money crowd has no reserve funds for their properties.

Where Deflation Does Its Damage
In a deflationary market, the value of your home can drop. If the value drops, the bank may call in your loan. Even if you've never missed a payment, and even if you're ahead on the payment schedule, the bank can call in your loan if they feel the value of the property is lower than the loan amount.

For example, say you buy a house for $100,000 and put 20 percent down and borrow $80,000. If the market deflates and the value of your home drops to $70,000 (because everyone else is selling their homes to get out of debt), the lender may ask you to pay the $80,000 you owe immediately.

If such deflation happens, cash will become king. There will be half-price sales on BMWs, expensive restaurants will close, and people will be out of work. And anybody who caters to people with dumb money will be in trouble. As I said before, deflation is much worse than inflation.

Smart Money, Bad Times
The good news is that during deflationary times, smart money reenters the market, so crashes are great for smart people with smart money. Instead of listening to the optimistic economists, then, you should eliminate bad debt and improve your debt-to-equity ratios on good debt.

Most important, study; if you want to be smart, you need to learn. I'll discuss what you should study in the second part of this column. For now, be aware that if deflation comes and there's a recession, it won't have much effect on the poor. Instead, it'll punish middle-class people who think they're rich because their houses and stocks have gone up in value.

I'll explain more in a couple of weeks.

More info @ http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/richricher/24515

The Wizard Of Oz

Memorable quote from the movie:

Auntie Em Gale (Clara Blandick): Almira Gulch. Just because you own half the town doesn't mean that you have the power to run the rest of us. For twenty-three years I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now... well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!

Opal: Identification and Value

By Paul B Downing
Majestic Press
1992 ISBN 0-9625311-2-X

Paul Downing writes:

My goal as I set out to do this book more than 3 years ago, was to produce a methodology for valuing opals which worked. But more important it had to work the same way for every person who used it. Thus, it was necessary to combine definitions of the various characteristics of an opal with a visual, measurable and reproducible criteria. It needed to be visual so that each person who used the definition gained the same sense of meaning from the words. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially when describing opal characteristics. Measurable criteria had to be developed so that each stone could be objectively characterized. The criteria had to be reproducible so that each individual using the valuing methodology employed the same meaning for each item.

Photographs were the only way. I am fortunate to know to excellent opal photographers, Len Cram and Rudy Weber, who have large libraries of pictures of opals of all types and characteristics. Each has access to some of the best opals found in Australia. Their photo libraries are an attempt to chronicle this exciting stone. Just to see them is a real treat. They are wonderful.

I searched through their libraries and selected pictures that would best illustrate the characteristics I needed for visual criteria. I did not always select the most beautiful picture, although there is plenty of beauty within these pages. Rather, I selected pictures for the utilitarian purpose of adding a visual to the definitions to be contained in this book. Without the help of Rudy and Len this book could not have been done. I am deeply in their debt.

Originally I was going to make my own estimates for value and set up a panel of experts to produce periodic updates. The more I thought about that, the more work it seemed. Then my wonderful wife, Bobbi, suggested a simple solution. Why not use someone else’s estimates of market value? The someone else was Richard Drucker and his market assessment of colored stones called The Guide. Terrific idea. Richard and his panel were already doing estimates of opal value and updating them periodically. Exactly what I needed, leaving me time to research more thoroughly the individual characteristics. Richard and I talked and he agreed to let me use his data. Again, I couldn’t do it without him.

The result of using The Guide as the basis for value is that this book never becomes outdated. To get a current reading of market value all you have to do is consult the current issue of The Guide. Then you can use the prices it contains with the methodology presented in this book to obtain the latest market estimate of the value of any opal.

The whole book is set up with one goal in mind. I want any user, anywhere in the world, to identify all the relevant characteristics of a particular opal in exactly the same way. The book is, unfortunately, quite detailed. This detail is needed so that each reader understands the subtle differences that can have a significant affect on value.

To make this detail a little less difficult to follow, I have broken down the process. The book instructs step-by-step, one characteristic at a time. When all the characteristics have been explained, I show how they are put together to form an estimate of value.

I have attempted to make the book complete by covering all sources of opal that appear on the market from Australia, Mexico, America, Brazil, Honduras and Hungary. I have covered all types too, including solid opal (black, white, and crystal), boulder opal, matrix opal, carved opal, doublets, triplets, synthetics and simulated. However, new sources appear yearly. Fortunately, the characteristics that make opal valuable, even opal from new sources, are covered in this book. Using these characteristics you should be able to estimate the market reaction to that new opal from Timbuktu.

It is important to realize that the use of the terms I define here have evolved in the industry over time and by word of mouth. It is inevitable that others will use or visualize these terms a little differently. Hopefully this book will be a first step toward a common and consistent terminology. Remember that definitions are never wrong—they are just different. I hope to narrow these differences.

I realize that the opal market is alive and well, and thus always in state of change. I cannot hope to anticipate the future. Rather, I have done my best to give the most accurate picture of the market at this time.

To do this I have consulted with various opal experts. I have had the privilege of sitting and kibitzing with the Opal Advisory Service of the Lightning Ridge Miners Association on numerous occasions. I have discussed pricing and this project at length with various opal experts in Australia, including Richard Osmond, Joy Clayton, Greg Sherman and John Traurig of Sydney; Ted Priester and Len Cram of Lightning Ridge; Ewe Barfuss of Yowah; Andrew Cody of Melbourne; Andrew Shelley of Coober Pedy; Stafford Scott of Mintabie; Mario Anic of Andamooka; and many others. Several opal cutters in Hong Kong have been most helpful, especially Sunny Li and Peter Su.

In the United States I have consulted with David Baitel, Martin Bell, Tony Dabdoub, Richard Drucker, Brian Franks, Keith Griffin, Glen and Keith Hodson, Bill Maison, Gerry Manning, and Charlie Smith, among others. None of these very helpful people agree with me completely, but I have taken their advice to the best of my ability. Presentations of these ideas at various meetings of the Accredited Gemologists Association and at the GIA International Symposium have helped me clarify and refine this book. My early article, Evaluating Cut Opal, appeared in the December, 1987 issue of Rock & Gem. This article was stimulated by a prior attempt at a pricing system put out by the American Opal Society.

Specific detailed reviews of drafts of parts or all of this book were done by Len Cram, Richard Drucker, Pat Dunnigan, Richard Osmond and Ted Priester. Without the help of all these people I could not have created this book. Still I must accept all the blame for the remaining errors. I hope you find this book helpful, and may be a little entertaining from time to time.

Diamonds Changing Facets

Here is an update on diamonds.

Economist writes:

An industry once dominated by a cartel is starting to look like any other. DIAMONDS are back on the big screen. The stones serenaded by Marilyn Monroe as a girl's best friend are now, however, portrayed by Hollywood as Africa's worst enemies. Leonardo DiCaprio may win an Academy Award for his performance in “Blood Diamond”, as a mercenary hunting for the precious rocks during the war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. But in reality, the shape of the industry—which produces an estimated $13 billion of rough stones and over $62 billion of diamond jewellery—has greatly changed since then.

More info @ http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8743058