Elegano.com

In an impassioned "State of the Diamond Industry" address, Rapaport Group Chairman Martin Rapaport said the jewelry industry cannot sell to people on credit anymore and also criticized members of the trade for not trading diamonds to keep prices from dropping.

Las Vegas--In his annual "State of the Diamond Industry" address, delivered on Monday morning during the JCK Las Vegas show, Rapaport Group Chairman Martin Rapaport gave an impassioned speech covering the good, the bad and the ugly about the current state of the diamond industry. "I am very, very pissed off about some of the things going on in the market," he said.

In contrast to last year's State of the Diamond Industry address--in which Rapaport caught heat from audience members for increasing diamond prices on his Rap list as much as 25 percent just before the Las Vegas jewelry shows--this year's speech drew laughter and even applause from the audience.

One issue that seemed particularly well received was Rapaport's comments on credit memo, a hot-button topic in an industry that thrives on loaning goods out on memo but also has been hurt by the practice when stores file for bankruptcy. "I'm going to blast the hell out of credit," Rapaport said before launching into his tirade. "It makes me want to throw up."

He said the jewelry industry simply cannot sell to people on credit anymore, and that diamonds at all levels of the trade must be sold to "real" buyers who actually have the money to pay for them. "You need real people with real money," he said. "We can't memo our way out of the recession." He called out the U.S. market specifically as being one that relies too heavily on credit to finance its jewelry trade. "People in the jewelry industry in the United States of America don't seem to be willing to put their money on the line," he said.

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