Can we go back to trading sea shells for deer meat?

Imagine it’s the 1930s and you’re a fly on the wall of a smoked-filled room full of early American finance nerds. They’re debating the long-term implications of abandoning the gold standard once and for all.

They talk about things like inflation.

They probably don’t talk about people eventually conspiring to corner an emerging cryptocurrency market in a pump and dump scheme funded by the recent minting of an NFT based on a fart joke tweet that will somehow crash the stock market unless their descendants can win a financial showdown with a bunch twenty-somethings holding shares of a failing video game company.

But whatever. Surely everything is fine and makes total sense.

Though as the world gets more convoluted, buying things has become kind of convoluted, too,

It doesn’t actually cost that much to lease a Mercedes. We make monthly payments to buy cool phones that will be obsolete before they’re paid off and then somehow trade them in for more monthly payments and an even cooler phone. Your movie collection disappears if you don’t pay Netflix their $12.99 a month. Oh and while your grandfather passed down a watch that he wore for 50 years (including at least one war), your step-counting Bluetooth-enabled wrist computer is ultimately more disposable than a toddler’s first set of teeth

Can we interest you in a home equity loan on your house, by the way?

We live in strange times, is what we’re trying to say.

Wouldn’t it be nice to actually own some stuff? Maybe even for a long time?

How about diamonds? Diamonds will outlive everything you have, except maybe student loans. They’re also fun. They’re pretty. They’re worth something. They don’t make you set up a username and password or pay a fee every month until you die.

They just…are. They’re the way they were 1,000 years ago and they’re the way they’ll be 1,000 years from now. That’s gotta count for something.

Of course, being able to get this awesome diamond bracelet for less than $100 has gotta count for something, too. Buy something that’ll last (no username required).