Forget about what is going in Iraq. Forget about Wall Street. According to Kenneth Gassman, the head of the U.S.-based Jewelry Industry Research Institute (JIRI), the jewelry industry is a safe bet for investment for the future.

Speaking at the Heart on Fire University in Las Vegas, Ken stresses that a number of factors indicate that the jewelry industry will flourish in both the short term and long term despite a currently weak economy. These factors include the increase in the number of consumers with broad spending power, and generally positive economic conditions, such as low interest rates, tax breaks, lowering levels of unemployment and inflation levels that are favorable to the U.S. consumer market - the largest jewelry market in the world.

But the focus is on demographic factors: affluence peaks at mid-life. Ken recalls the answer given by a bank-robber, as to why he was robbing banks: "Because that's where the money is." The Baby Boomers, accounting for nearly a third of all Americans, are older and wealthier and have the financial power to purchase luxury jewelry items. Says Ken: Boomers are turning age 50 at the rate of over 11,800 per day between now and 2014. Wealthy consumers spend more on jewelry than lower income consumers. The researcher colludes that these people will spend and buy diamond jewelry - simply because they have the money.

We don't know whether that is necessarily so (in Japan consumer behavior seems different), but the theory makes sense and is logical. Ken further considers branding and marketing as the two key action words of the industry. Branding, whether based on a store name or a jewelry manufacturer, increases consumers' confidence in their purchases - a happy shopper is likely to return to the same brand or the same store where they were previously satisfied. Branding will assist in stimulating the industry for many years to come. The same goes for marketing - with correct marketing, the jewelry industry is guaranteed a strong future. Marketing methods, such as the campaign for three-stoned jewelry, representing the Past, Present and Future, create new demand for both diamonds and jewelry.

There are new market niches to be identified and targeted in the quest for enlarging the jewelry consumer market - there are jewels for men, and unisex styles are also becoming ever more popular. And if a decade ago it was teenagers who were street-wise and fashion conscious, its now an ever-younger growing generation who know what the latest sneakers are, who the best pop group is, and what type of jewelry is 'in'. New jewelry items, the latest 'in-thing', are continuously appearing in the market.

Such creative marketing and improvements in selling methods have proved successful in the industry, with jewelry merchants generating profits all year round instead of the simple boom witnessing during the Christmas and holidays selling periods. New technologies leave the door wide open for growth in the industry - the internet provides an easy, relatively cheap, wide-reaching method of offering consumers around the globe the chance to purchase jewelry around the clock.

Consolidation within the jewelry industry, one of the last unconsolidated retailing sectors, will provide long-term security to both larger firms and small independent jewelers who can manage to find their own special niche. And despite fluctuations in the prices of some precious metals, the retail price of jewelry has remained fairly solid, and demand has remained at a constant level. Taking it all into consideration, the future certainly does look bright and promising for the jewelry industry, concludes the JIRI spokesman, who seems to expect that the industry may well be heading for its best decade ever. That is certainly most encouraging --- if he is right.