IS U.S. BUSINESS INTEGRITY SLIPPING OR GROWING, OVERALL?

I wonder at times if American business culture has less integrity than it used to, or if we just hear about the sleaze more than we used to. There used to be snake oil sales people, and now we have the FDA and Consumer Protection Agency (let’s not even look at Wall Street, the big banks, Congress, etc.) Are we a better society than we used to be, or are we losing ground? This musing was kicked off by my deodorant. Twenty some years ago I discovered mineral salt deodorant. It was a simple round rock of clear mineral salts from France that you rub on your clean wet underarm. It worked spectacularly, for several days with one application even. This rock had no carcinogens, no endocrine disruptors or other nasty chemicals, and no plastic packaging to send to the landfill; and one $10 rock lasted me for years. A couple years back, tragically, it stopped working for me. I suppose the bacteria on my skin evolved immunity to the mineral salts. Even when I had the salt, I also had stick deodorant for when I was in a hurry and wanted a perfumed underarm touch-up that didn’t require freshly cleaned, wet armpits.

A while back I also discovered the EWG website, Skindeep www.ewg.org/skindeep , where anyone can look up personal care products, which are safety rated on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s an eye opener. Antiperspirants, and a lot of the stuff we put on our bodies, contain all sorts of toxins, (and thanks mostly to our privately funded, legal bribery, campaign finance system, this is still perfectly legal.) I noticed on Skindeep that one of the most toxic ingredients is the artificial perfume in products. I started using unscented laundry detergent and dryer softener after that. I tried all the naturally scented health food store deodorants too, and they feel great and smell nice, but none of them work for me (I stink after a bit.) So now I mostly use nothing and I wash more often.

Back to the pits. I was in the store yesterday and wanted a scented antiperspirant deodorant for occasional emergency use, so I sniffed the myriad scents of Dove brand stick antiperspirant (my current favorite.) I picked one with a very minimal scent, thinking less perfume may mean fewer toxins. It’s a new variety and not in EWG’s data base yet. I read the ingredient list on the package this morning and noticed that the front of the package proudly proclaims: NEW UNIQUE FORMULA with calendula and sunflower seed extracts. So then I looked at the fine print ingredient list, which one must peel off the top layer of the label to see. Ingredients on packaging are listed in order of volume, from greatest to least. The sunflower oil in this antiperspirant is way down near the preservative, BHT (a toxin), and calendula extract is last on the list, even though it is first in their NEW UNIQUE FORMULA text atop the front label.

This revelation makes me wonder- do they think no one reads labels? Do they think we are stupid? Are we stupid? The balls that would proudly tout NEW ingredients that are barely present in the product! It made me shake my head in disgust. The snake oil folks are alive and prospering, it seems.

I saw a lollipop display in the store emblazoned all over with bold lettering: A FAT FREE FOOD
(Refined sugar is more readily converted to fat on our bodies than dietary fat)

 

New York City recently banned deadly trans fat in food sold there, and most foods in the grocery are now free of the nasty stuff- but the Girl Scout Cookies I bought this year still used it!

Fifteen percent of worker pay is reportedly stolen by bosses, and wage and hour violation claims are up 400% over the last 11 years http://www.alternet.org/story/155710/wage_theft_epidemic%3A_bosses_pocket_15_percent_of_workers%27_pay

It makes me wonder: do the other things we have recently gained as a society outweigh the latest abuses by the greedy, integrity-challenged, and power-crazed?

Racism and sexism have been driven under the table, mostly. Cops who attack peaceful citizens sometimes get to star in infamy on YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irVlwb8a3TU&feature=related

Bull$%#@ from politicians gets lampooned in prime time by Jon Stewart www.thedailyshow.com  and Rachel Maddow www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show 

But, are we as a nation, as a species, improving ethically, overall? Is integrity in business backsliding or growing? Alas, my antiperspirant votes no.

Being an idealist can be really hard.