The identifiable fact of being bloody serious.
“Not Just Sawdust, Não Só Serradura, because it isn't just that. It's the evidence reflecting the relentless urge to create, the proverbial blood of that beautiful material nature provides us with. It's the sharp teeth that cut, the subdued mind that finds out what a piece of wood harbours in itself”.
I wrote this a long time ago for my website. At first site, sawdust looks just waste during the process of creating, but with the expansion of biological solutions in all kinds of fields, it became a sought-after, sellable product. Now I don’t mind giving sawdust away for free, it’s very useful for those biological toilets. I even do sell shavings and sawdust, the product that remains from planing or sanding by hand is very useful as “smoke dust”. It turns out that blood, in any form, is big business! It’s such a lucrative business, that managers of Sanquin, a so-called non-profit organization that regulates blood supply in the Netherlands (because everything to do with health care needs to be marketed, according to the “liberal” VVD party that’s been in gouverment for the last decade), reward themselves with top salaries. With so much financial opulence you would expect that the people who made this all possible, without whom there would be no such thing as a blood bank, the donors, would be well rewarded.
How much does a blood donor receive as compensation for donating blood? All zero euro. Donors may, however, choose something on the Sanquin website. After giving blood five times, you can, for example, opt for a plastic shopping bag.
The annual report for 2017 shows that Sanquin directors themselves “pick up their nose” for such a bag. More than two hundred thousand Euro of salary is the standard. The vice-chairman of the board of directors can fill quite a few of those plastic bags with a reward of 250,000 euros per year. From ten donations on, you can also opt for a t-shirt with the imprint: 'Real heroes give blood.' On June 14, the World Blood Donor Day, proclaimed by the World Health Organization (WHO), I looked for some addresses in the Netherlands. It will come as no surprise that Sanquin's website is the first to appear in Google's search results when you type in the word 'blood donor'. Someone has to bleed for those salaries.
In the old days, every hospital had its own blood donors. That was then merged into the Blood Bank which fell under the Red Cross. The Blood Bank was then privatized and market forces made its appearance with the known salaries. The principle is still the same, donors give disinterestedly. Now, however, the system is controlled by greedy crooks, just like the big financial banks, Sanguin is indispensable so nothing will change as they have the monopoly on blood in The Netherlands. It’s all about keeping costs down and making as much profit as possible because Sanquin is not a 'charity organization' but a company: Sanquin consists of the following organizational units: the Blood Bank, Plasma Products B.V., Diagnostics B.V., Research and Lab Services, Reagents B.V., Sanquinnovate B.V. and Tissues & Cells. The Corporate Staff supports these organizational components and advises the Executive Board. The Consulting Services division also falls under the Corporate Staff.
In addition to the collection, processing and dispensing of blood products, Sanquin produces medicines from plasma, makes blood group and immune reagents and performs diagnostic research for hospitals and all come with a price tag. Blood transfusion medicine remains a research field in development, but universities are hardly doing any research without being “sponsored” by a big pharmaceutical company. A key activity of Sanquin is, therefore, doing research in the field of blood, plasma medicines and diagnostics. You might think that’s a good thing but, of course, it’s only done when there’s a possibility of profit. Hospitals pay an exorbitant amount of money (which is reflected in the healthcare insurance rates) for solutions this company came up with. They’re not different than any other big pharmacy company. Each price is the result of the price f blood storage and research and topped-up with huge part profit. The profit mark-up always goes to the owners of these companies, directors and shareholders. You, being a hero and giving blood, are scrutinously fucked over by some commercial company who makes sure that your donation is sold for the highest price possible.
Now, I didn’t do any research on how the system works in other countries, but as for The Netherlands, it’s a “bloody shame” how the “market” was given the chance to get rich with our blood. It doesn’t come as a surprise, in a country where multinationals are taking part in writing laws, where big companies just make secret deals with the director of the tax institution, not to pay any taxes at all and where ministers on the payroll of those same big companies (Shell, Exxon, Nam) are frustrating the compensation for a hundred thousand homeowners who saw their house crack and fall apart because of the hundreds of earthquakes that took place in the last decade as a result from pumping up natural gas. People are living in caravans and tents next to their homes, are protesting peacefully and some even went as far as to go on a hunger strike. The reasons are quite clear. The Gouvernment itself and the King of the Netherlands and his family are major stockholders in this “Royal” company.
All the Dutch Prime Minister (already in his third term) has to say is; “Welcome to the neoliberal Netherlands, don’t worry, we’ll sort it out, we’ll find the money to compensate and rebuild houses!” In the search for funds he and his gouvernment closed hundreds of elderly homes, minimised budgets for mental health care and disability allowance, wants to take away minimum wages and related pensions for disabled people, raises V.A.T. on healthy food, in fact squeezes as much out of the Dutch as possible to achieve the dispense of dividend tax for the major multinationals, of which Shell is one, (but it’s shareholders didn’t pay that tax because of secret tax ruling anyway) instead of holding them accountable for the damage in the province of Groningen as a result of “mining” gas. Most of the wealth in The Netherlands comes from the fact that there are big bubbles of natural gas in that province, hundreds of billions profit were made and ended up in the pockets of a few greedy elites. There’s been a few brave people who took Shell and the Dutch gouvernment to court... of course, they won. But Prime Minister Rutte and his 40 pirates keep coming up with new rules and regulations, research and investigation commissions to win time and just a few persons have the means to fight in court against dozens of lawyers.
Blood is big business! Organs are big business! It’s just a matter of time before the first real disaster will strike in the province of Groningen, that is, if you don’t see the suicide rates, people forced out of their unsafe houses, living in caravans and tents as a disaster. If the next earthquake hits, at least there’s blood for the wounded, and profit for the ones collecting it out of some hero’s veins. Now I’m one of those people whose blood was refused, I’m not ill, but there’s something wrong with it according to the test. So I’ll just keep donating that proverbial blood of wood called sawdust... for free.
I wrote this a long time ago for my website. At first site, sawdust looks just waste during the process of creating, but with the expansion of biological solutions in all kinds of fields, it became a sought-after, sellable product. Now I don’t mind giving sawdust away for free, it’s very useful for those biological toilets. I even do sell shavings and sawdust, the product that remains from planing or sanding by hand is very useful as “smoke dust”. It turns out that blood, in any form, is big business! It’s such a lucrative business, that managers of Sanquin, a so-called non-profit organization that regulates blood supply in the Netherlands (because everything to do with health care needs to be marketed, according to the “liberal” VVD party that’s been in gouverment for the last decade), reward themselves with top salaries. With so much financial opulence you would expect that the people who made this all possible, without whom there would be no such thing as a blood bank, the donors, would be well rewarded.
How much does a blood donor receive as compensation for donating blood? All zero euro. Donors may, however, choose something on the Sanquin website. After giving blood five times, you can, for example, opt for a plastic shopping bag.
The annual report for 2017 shows that Sanquin directors themselves “pick up their nose” for such a bag. More than two hundred thousand Euro of salary is the standard. The vice-chairman of the board of directors can fill quite a few of those plastic bags with a reward of 250,000 euros per year. From ten donations on, you can also opt for a t-shirt with the imprint: 'Real heroes give blood.' On June 14, the World Blood Donor Day, proclaimed by the World Health Organization (WHO), I looked for some addresses in the Netherlands. It will come as no surprise that Sanquin's website is the first to appear in Google's search results when you type in the word 'blood donor'. Someone has to bleed for those salaries.
In the old days, every hospital had its own blood donors. That was then merged into the Blood Bank which fell under the Red Cross. The Blood Bank was then privatized and market forces made its appearance with the known salaries. The principle is still the same, donors give disinterestedly. Now, however, the system is controlled by greedy crooks, just like the big financial banks, Sanguin is indispensable so nothing will change as they have the monopoly on blood in The Netherlands. It’s all about keeping costs down and making as much profit as possible because Sanquin is not a 'charity organization' but a company: Sanquin consists of the following organizational units: the Blood Bank, Plasma Products B.V., Diagnostics B.V., Research and Lab Services, Reagents B.V., Sanquinnovate B.V. and Tissues & Cells. The Corporate Staff supports these organizational components and advises the Executive Board. The Consulting Services division also falls under the Corporate Staff.
In addition to the collection, processing and dispensing of blood products, Sanquin produces medicines from plasma, makes blood group and immune reagents and performs diagnostic research for hospitals and all come with a price tag. Blood transfusion medicine remains a research field in development, but universities are hardly doing any research without being “sponsored” by a big pharmaceutical company. A key activity of Sanquin is, therefore, doing research in the field of blood, plasma medicines and diagnostics. You might think that’s a good thing but, of course, it’s only done when there’s a possibility of profit. Hospitals pay an exorbitant amount of money (which is reflected in the healthcare insurance rates) for solutions this company came up with. They’re not different than any other big pharmacy company. Each price is the result of the price f blood storage and research and topped-up with huge part profit. The profit mark-up always goes to the owners of these companies, directors and shareholders. You, being a hero and giving blood, are scrutinously fucked over by some commercial company who makes sure that your donation is sold for the highest price possible.
Now, I didn’t do any research on how the system works in other countries, but as for The Netherlands, it’s a “bloody shame” how the “market” was given the chance to get rich with our blood. It doesn’t come as a surprise, in a country where multinationals are taking part in writing laws, where big companies just make secret deals with the director of the tax institution, not to pay any taxes at all and where ministers on the payroll of those same big companies (Shell, Exxon, Nam) are frustrating the compensation for a hundred thousand homeowners who saw their house crack and fall apart because of the hundreds of earthquakes that took place in the last decade as a result from pumping up natural gas. People are living in caravans and tents next to their homes, are protesting peacefully and some even went as far as to go on a hunger strike. The reasons are quite clear. The Gouvernment itself and the King of the Netherlands and his family are major stockholders in this “Royal” company.
All the Dutch Prime Minister (already in his third term) has to say is; “Welcome to the neoliberal Netherlands, don’t worry, we’ll sort it out, we’ll find the money to compensate and rebuild houses!” In the search for funds he and his gouvernment closed hundreds of elderly homes, minimised budgets for mental health care and disability allowance, wants to take away minimum wages and related pensions for disabled people, raises V.A.T. on healthy food, in fact squeezes as much out of the Dutch as possible to achieve the dispense of dividend tax for the major multinationals, of which Shell is one, (but it’s shareholders didn’t pay that tax because of secret tax ruling anyway) instead of holding them accountable for the damage in the province of Groningen as a result of “mining” gas. Most of the wealth in The Netherlands comes from the fact that there are big bubbles of natural gas in that province, hundreds of billions profit were made and ended up in the pockets of a few greedy elites. There’s been a few brave people who took Shell and the Dutch gouvernment to court... of course, they won. But Prime Minister Rutte and his 40 pirates keep coming up with new rules and regulations, research and investigation commissions to win time and just a few persons have the means to fight in court against dozens of lawyers.
Blood is big business! Organs are big business! It’s just a matter of time before the first real disaster will strike in the province of Groningen, that is, if you don’t see the suicide rates, people forced out of their unsafe houses, living in caravans and tents as a disaster. If the next earthquake hits, at least there’s blood for the wounded, and profit for the ones collecting it out of some hero’s veins. Now I’m one of those people whose blood was refused, I’m not ill, but there’s something wrong with it according to the test. So I’ll just keep donating that proverbial blood of wood called sawdust... for free.
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