What a Joke! De Beers has finally opened its wallet to settle their lawsuit for a mere $295M. Now, if we were talking one billion bucks (considering what they've been raking it in since the beginning of time) then maybe we'd all have something to get excited about!

It's simply laughable when the spokeswoman for De Beers publicly states that the $295M is a significant sum for De Beers - please!!!!!! When you break the numbers down, small jewelry store owners might just get a cool $100 bucks for their time to fill out the endless paperwork.

Let's see...price fixing from 1994 until 2006 and creating a monopoly. This is worth $295 million bucks for all those guys who put their salaries away for an engagement ring. How much did De Beers make during their period of monopolizing the world market on diamonds? Who knows. What we do is that De Beers controls 80% of the world's diamond market and that translates in the billions year after year after year.

In 1951, De Beers launched "A Diamond is Whatever" campaign. Think about it? We're talking 1951 and the campaign was so successful that everyone knows or, at least thinks, a diamond is whatever. It's what we've been sold on and, those who sold us on the notion of saving months of salary to prove our love to another, actually sat back and started price fixing and creating a monopoly. But, we showed them, we threw De Beers out the United States and said, "don't come back". That is...until De Beers realized that it could cut out the middleman and sell direct and make even more money.

Eh??? That's what De Beers had to be saying to themselves when the Canadians discovered huge diamond deposits sitting in their own backyard. De Beers and the Canadians were flying all over remote areas of Canada staking out claims. However, the Canucks beat them to the punch and De Beers comes to the realization that they should beat it out of Canada (it's cold there anyway) and look back towards their captive market in the United States.

Yes, a Diamond is Whatever still holds true today and the truth (while De Beers gracefully sits back and admits no wrongdoing) is that De Beers fixed the pricing on their goods - plain and simple. They created a monopoly - absolutely true and that monopoly (in my humble opinion) continues today.

I would suggest that anyone who gets a De Beers rebate - send it off to your favorite charity. After all, no one knew that they were overpaying for their diamond engagement rings and since De Beers really can't make everyone whole (there's not enough money to go around) maybe the money could go to good use.

In a country, where we many won't eat veal due to the treatment of animals, we want to go-green to save the environment, we seek to stop apartheid around the globe - we simply want things to get better. However, we seem to think that to show our love - we must do so - by bestowing a stone, which has caused the deaths of how many people? Has torn families apart, has financed wars and has left large pits in the Earth - we seek to save.

We just might lose a few readers and subscribers for posting this article and that's too bad as, if you're part of the problem, you're not part of the solution. This Valentine's Day, forget about journey this and three stone that - stick with a dozen roses and a teddy bear. Last time I looked, a dozen roses and a teddy bear never caused an untimely death.