diamonds
I didn't realise that the Russian diamond company Alrosa is now the world's biggest producer of diamonds, overtaking De Beers. What I found interesting about the article is how the people the nytimes interviews for the article openly (a few times in the article) admit that diamonds have no real value and they have to prop up the price.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/business/global/12diamonds.html?ref=business&pagewanted=all
