BLOOD!
Chuck writes,
I don’t donate blood. I figure if my highly coveted universal blood type O negative is worth so much that the fucking blood bank is always hittin’ me up for donations then my blood is..uhh..worth more than ..uhh..NOTHING y’know? If there’s no blood and you need blood then WHY don’t they PAY for blood?
That mother fucking doctor is making money on the transfusion..C’MON! Why the hell would they not pay for blood? As a matter of fact, if they payed well for blood there would never be supply problems and lives would be saved.
But the stupid moronic altruistic philosophy that infects our society sets up a system where there is no reward for giving blood except for an ambiguous, fleeting and undeserved feeling of being superior to those who would consider such selfless behavior in the same manner as those who would ponder the inner workings of the suicidal mind.
Why would you refuse the money that is rightfully yours as determined by the mind of the rational man utilizing the concept of supply and demand? Enormous amounts of waste and death are the results of the refusal to recognize that “supply & demand” is every bit as real and unyielding as Ohm’s Law, and the refusal to recognize its supremacy in all realms economic can only bring pain and suffering.
My Response:
Why can I not get high speed internet from any company except Comcast? Oh, wait, there’s DSL… which SUCKS.
How much money do those doctors make on the transfusion?
When’s the last time a labor union didn’t fall under the three categories of A) taking your money every month, yet providing no additional stability to the worker; B) taking your money
every month but imposing ridiculous levels of restriction and artificially inflated wages so that companies can barely make a profit; C) fail to protect workers who might truly benefit
from a worker’s advocacy (China)?
Why is Nostradamus still hailed as a “Prophet” on the History Channel, when clearly his so-called predictions were so amorphous that they could apply to any situation the observer
cared to associate it with?
How can parents’ custody of a child hang in the balance of baseless accusations of abuse and neglect, with a hair-trigger investigative government at the ready?
Why is creativity, free speech, and personal choice stifled in the name of morality?
Why does the media sell doom & gloom, reveling in times of a bear market and exaggerating the effects of sub-prime lending?
The answer to all of these questions can, perhaps, be examined from the perspective of supply and demand, and perhaps not only explained, but solved or at least mitigated.
Some more than others.
What’s upChuck? Ok, so I couldn’t help myself on that one.
In response to your blood rant above, here is another perspective. Donating blood might be considered the easiest way to “volunteer†and “give back†to your community. Yes, the “mother fucking doctor†gets paid to perform the transfusion, but the collecting, processing, testing, transporting and storing of the donated blood costs money. I’m sure the patient and/or his/her insurance company pay for all of this in the end, but actually paying people for their blood donations in cash money would raise the price of blood transfusion recipients’ medical bills.
I actually do get tangible benefits from attempting to donate blood. I say “attempting†because usually my iron level is too low and they won’t take my blood, but they still give me the perks for trying.
I’m on the email list called “DonorPoint,†http://www.indianablood.org/donating/Pages/default.aspx.
They send me the list of free shit that they are giving away and on which dates for blood donations. And the free shit is not a mere cheap-ass size XL t-shirt, my friend. Examples of stuff that I’ve gotten from attempting to donate blood include, but are not limited to: $25 restaurant gift certificates, free movie passes, free Indiana Beach all-day ride tickets worth $35 (great for my son). Not to mention that they have free snacks and beverages there while you wait before and after your attempted donation. Also, you are getting a free HIV and hepititis test with every donation (comes in handy for those one-night-stands who require written documentation of your sexual health.) Also, if you go in hungry before donating, you can get a free light-headed high for the rest of the day. Oh, and you have an excuse to take the rest of the day off of work. Not to mention free good Karma.
Wow…that post strikes me as coming from a very selfish person. Let’s hope you’re never in the situation where you need type O -…because you can only RECEIVE type O -, and if everybody felt like you, you would be out of luck, Chuck (couldn’t resist that, either). There are actually people in the world who enjoy being charitable and giving something for free they didn’t have to buy (where some people donate something they have purchased in the past like clothing or food).
With that being said, I have heard you can sell blood plasma.