The High Cost of So-Called Cheap Food

Conversations From the Corner Office
Posted by Rick Irrgang, CEO of my life
12.23.2009

I ran across an interesting article about food today.  Julia and I do what we can to protect our health. From what we eat to what we let come in to contact with our skin, it all makes a big difference. Please enjoy today's feature. If you'd like to know more about protecting you and your family, please contact me at rick@lifesafeandhealthy.net 

The High Cost of So-Called Cheap Food

Over the past 65 years, chemical agriculture, factory farms, and now genetic engineering have devastated public health, wrecked the environment, and destabilized the climate. The U.S. public now spends $2.4 trillion dollars a year on health care, $800 billion of which is directly attributable to consuming chemical-laden junk food.
After poisoning us with cheap food and destroying the environment, Big Food Inc. turns us over to Big Pharma and the Industrial Health Complex to repair the damage, or rather to keep us alive long enough to extract maximum profits. But from the warped perspective of the for-profit health insurance industry, overweight and diseased people aren't very profitable. That's why health insurance corporations spend $350 billion per year trying to avoid coverage and deny claims. The vast, paper-pushing bureaucracy the for-profit insurance industry has created to help them avoid providing services soaks up 31% of all health care spending!
If we shifted the 31% of health care spending taken up by the administrative costs of the for-profit health insurance industry to a single-payer, universal health care system, we could cover the uninsured without increasing total health-care spending. The Organic Consumers Association supports single-payer, universal health care, with a focus on preventive health, diet, nutrition and stress-reduction.
However:

IF PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS A BILL THAT TAKES AWAY OUR HEALTH RIGHTS, THAT FORCES AMERICANS TO BUY OVERPRICED, INADEQUATE COVERAGE FROM THE FOR-PROFIT HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY, OCA WILL LAUNCH A BOYCOTT!

Eventually, we have to stop arguing over who's going to pay for out-of-control health care costs and restore public health! The real solution to our health care crisis is to stop subsidizing chemical and GMO food and farming, along with the destruction of our environment and our climate, and make the long overdue transition to organics. Then, under universal healthcare or Medicare for All, we can shift from health care that treats sickness caused by unhealthy food and an unhealthy environment and lifestyle to health care that promotes wellness.

Best wishes for a healthy wealthy 2010 from Rick and Julia Irrgang

Are You Living in a Healthy Wealthy Home?

Conversations From the Corner Office.
12-16-09
Posted by Rick Irrgang

Are your personal care products safe? As we come near the end of the year and start making plans for 2010, why not make plans to make you and your home a healthy wealthy home? Did you know that you can get paid to make the change? Let us show you how.
Please read todays post and see if you home is a healthy home.


Dangerous chemicals contaminate our polluted
world, yet we often turn a blind eye to the potential
dangers from chemicals in our everyday lives, even
though they can be avoided. This is especially true of the products in our bathrooms.
What is on the ingredients list?
You may be surprised.
Harmful or Carcinogenic Ingredients Commonly Found in Products
Diethanolamine (DEA) (shampoos, body washes, bubble bath, shaving cream)
Triethanolamine (TEA) (moisturizers, cosmetics, deodorant, toothpaste, body oils, washes)
Sodium Laureth Sulphate (SLES) (as above)
Propylene Glycol (moisturisers, shaving cream, deodorants, baby products)
Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) (shampoo, bubble bath, shaving foam, cleansers etc)
Sodium Fluoride (toothpaste)
Alcohol (mouthwash, toners, baby products)
Talc (baby powder, make-up, foot preparations)
Glycerine (moisturizers, lotions)
PABA (sunscreens)
PEG (cosmetics, make-up, shaving cream)
Artificial flavours (toothpaste, mouthwash)
Artificial colours (make-up, toothpaste, shampoos)
Ether (nail treatments, shampoo, conditioner)
Coal Tars (shampoo, conditioner, hair dyes, soap, skin care, cosmetics)
Aluminium (antiperspirants)
Acetone (nail polish remover)
Formaldehyde (antiperspirants, nail treatments, perfumes)
Fluorocarbons (hair spray)
Dioxins (shampoo)
Petrolatum or Mineral Oil (baby products, washes)
This list is not exhaustive and the above ingredients are found in many more products than just those
indicated.
Unique Cancer Risk from Cosmetics and Personal Care Products.

Dr Samuel Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, states that mainstream industry cosmetics
and personal care products (CPCPs) are the single most important, yet generally unrecognized, class of
avoidable carcinogenic exposures for the overwhelming majority of citizens in major industrial nations. The
reason for these unique risks reflects a complex of individual and interactive factors such as:
• Interaction between different ingredients: even though a specific ingredient might not be in itself a
“frank” carcinogen it might be a “hidden” carcinogen that may, under certain conditions, have
carcinogenic properties when it combines with other ingredients in a product.
• Prolonged duration of exposure: the concern is that daily exposure, over a lifetime, of toxic ingredients,
many of which are left on skin, has a cumulative negative effect.
• High permeability of skin: the skin is highly permeable to carcinogenic and other toxic ingredients,
especially following prolonged exposure.
• Effect of wetting agents on skin permeability: the permeability of skin to carcinogens, besides other
toxic ingredients, is further increased by the presence of wetting agents or surfactants, probably the
most common class of ingredients in the majority of CPCPs.
• Bypassing detoxifying enzyme: carcinogens in CPCPs pose greater cancer risks than does food
contaminated with carcinogenic pesticides and other industrial carcinogens as they are not detoxified
by the liver but reach the general blood circulation without this protective detoxification.

Frank & Hidden Carcinogens
Acrylate
acid orange 3
Acrylate copolymers
amorphous silicates
Benzyl acetate
blue 1,2,4
bromonitrodioxane
bronopol
bronopol (2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol)
butyl benzylphthalate
Butylated hydroxyanisole
butylated hydroxytoluene
Ceteareth-3
chlorhexidine
Choleth-24
chrystalline silica
coal tar dyes
DEA
DEA-Cocamide & Lauramide & Oleamide condensates
DEA-cocamide/lauramide condensates
DEA-MEA/ Acetame
DEA-Sodium lauryl sulfate
diaminoanisole
diaminophenol
diaminotoluene
diazolidinyl urea
Diethanolamide-cocamide, lauramide & oleamide
condensates
dioctyl adipate
disperse blue1
disperse yellow3
DMDM-Hydantoin
ethoxylated alcohols
ethyl alcohol
fluoride
formaldehyde
glutaral
green 1,2,3
hydroquinone
Imidazolidinyl urea
lanolin
Laureth's
Methacrylate copolymers
metheneamine
Metheneamine
methylene chloride
Morpholine
nitrophenylenediamine
Nonoxynol
Oleth's
Padimate-O (octyldimethyl para-amino benzoic acid)
PEG's (polyethylene glycols)
polyoxymethyleneurea
Polysorbate 60
Polysorbate 80
polyvinyl acetate
polyvinyl pyrrolidone
p-phenylphenylenediamine
pyrocatechol
Pyroglutamic Acid
Quaternium-15
quaternium-26
red 4,9,17,19,22,33,40
saccharin
Sodium/Hydroxymethylglycinate
talc
TEA
TEA-Sodium lauryl sulfate
titanium dioxide
Yellow 5,6,8

Wow, are you interested in learning more? It was this list that we read that started our commitment to sharing Our safe and effective products with the world.

Labor Dept: Available Labor Rate Increases To 10.2%

Conversations From the Corner Office:
Posted by Rick Irrgang
12-10-09
You know, I'm always looking to the right side, the bright side, no matter what rock I have to turn over to get it. Today, bad news can actually be good news, it's all a matter of your point of view. Are you a 1/2 glass full or 1/2 glass empty sort of person. Today's post is a funny twist on bad news gone good. Enjoy today, if you are still not one of the millions of potentially employable Americans, just wait you might be. Until then, Julia and I offer a sound business that anyone can participate in. Why wait?
Have fun with today's post.


Business Section:
Labor Dept: Available Labor Rate Increases To 10.2%

WASHINGTON—In what is being touted by the Labor Department as extremely positive news, the nation's available labor rate has reached double digits for the first time in 26 years, bringing the total number of potentially employable Americans to an impressive 15.7 million.

"This is such an exciting time to be an employer in America," said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, adding that every single day 6,500 more citizens join America's growing possible workforce. "There's such a massive and diverse pool of job-ready Americans to choose from. And each month the number only gets higher."
"While our current available labor rate of 10.2 percent isn't quite as robust as it was in 1982 or 1933, we're happy to say that reaching that benchmark is no longer out of the realm of possibility," Solis continued.
According to the Department of Labor's report, nearly 200,000 more Americans suddenly became fully hirable in October alone. And November saw unprecedented gains in the number of high-quality auto workers, teachers, lawyers, part-time retailers, and even doctors who could be employed.
The report also explained that, because of the booming would-be-employee market, college graduates are having an easier time than ever joining the ranks of those ready and able to receive monetary compensation for work performed at some point.

Enlarge Image

Moreover, it found that, while all Americans were benefiting in some way from the new trend, the nation's African Americans appeared to be in the best position to take advantage of the upward swing in potential employment, with 15.7 percent of all black citizens now situated to have a chance of becoming wage-earners someday.
"We are very lucky to be living in a time when so many people can just go out whenever they feel like it and get a job application," Deputy Labor Secretary Seth Harris announced. "Compare that to the late '60s or late '90s, when the available labor rate plummeted to 4 percent and employers didn't have their pick of millions upon millions of Americans dying to put on a hard hat or suit jacket for practically peanuts."
Added Harris, "Those were scary times in America."
Though Labor sources said the new figures were encouraging, officials were quick to point out that the exact number of those now possessing the capacity to be offered work someday is actually much higher.
"Our findings don't take into account all the men and women who are available for work but haven't applied for a job in the last month," Solis said. "That's another 2.4 million Americans out there who can proudly say they wake up every day, get their kids ready for school, and then sit in their living rooms praying for the phone to ring."
Solis told reporters she is also encouraged by the vast number of citizens in every state who are willing to take jobs beneath their personal dignity and education level.
The Labor Secretary cited the fact that California boasts an impressive available labor force of more than 2 million citizens, while in Oregon, 11.5 percent of the state is ready to fill out a growing stack of empty W-2 forms. In Michigan, more than 15 percent of all citizens said they could start work either today, tomorrow, or right this very second if that's what it takes.
"I'll do anything," said Ohio resident Garret Landry, who was last not available for steady employment more than 10 months ago. "Seriously, anything. Cars? I could learn how to fix cars. Manual labor? An office job? Just say the word and I'm there."
"I'll transcribe what you're writing for $50," Landry added. "Okay, $25."

Conversations From the Corner Office:
Posted by Rick Irrgang
12-06-2009

Dear me, we lost a friend over the weekend.
Do you keep a check list of things you'd like to do and people you'd like to meet? I do. Not many people impress me enough to be on my list but Mr. Jim Rohn was. In 2005 Julia and I were blessed to be at a motivational conference in Dallas Texas. Jim Rohn was one of the speakers and he was on my list. The only words I spoke to him were, "I'm honored to meet you" and "you changed my life forever". Over the years I've been able to re-new my belief system in times of darkness by re-listening to Mr Rohn's words of wisdom. Julia and I will miss him but he will live forever in our hearts. His words will always be here for us to grow, learn and just be better people. 
Mr Rohn, if you can hear us, god bless you.  We will think of you every day.  Here's a tribut from his website.
- Rick and Julia

The Passing of a Legend

With great sadness we share that Jim Rohn, our mentor and friend, left us December 5, 2009 for a better place.
Over the past 18 months, in his battle with Pulmonary Fibrosis, Jim assured us with a smile that all is good, that he would fight until the last breath, yet he had no fear as to what would be next. Jim’s faith was as much a part of his life as his desire to inspire and challenge us all to be the best we could be and to live our dreams.
Jim’s courage in his final months and days were a testament to his message that we should all fight the good fight. He never gave up and never gave in.
Jim Rohn touched millions of lives over the past 46 years through his seminars, books, articles and CDs. He always stayed long after an event to shake hands, take pictures and sign autographs. He loved making a difference in people’s lives, that was his passion and inspiration. Yet he was also a private man who kept a small, loyal and caring inner circle. He was a tremendous friend to those who knew him.
Harold Dyke, long time close friend of Jim’s for over 55 years said it best, “As Jim is ending one life he is simultaneously being birthed into a new life. One that he has talked about over the years and anticipated with great joy in his last remaining days.”
Kyle Wilson, long time colleague and friend of Jim had this to say about his mentor, “Jim Rohn was a great human being. Jim had the rare ability to take any concept or idea and then frame it in such a way that the rest of us could see it more clearly. His wisdom and insights positively affected everyone he touched on some level and to so many of us it was in an extraordinary way. But even more impressive was Jim Rohn the man. He possessed style and charisma, yet was humble, kind and understated to all who knew him. I find myself every day reflecting, benefiting and passing on the wisdom and ideas that are rooted in Jim’s message and wisdom. Jim is irreplaceable on every level. I will miss him beyond words, but am comforted as I know he was, that his message and legacy will live on and positively change millions of lives over the years to come!”
Someone once said “when you are born you enter the world crying while everyone else is rejoicing and when you die hopefully you have lived such a life that everyone will be crying while you are rejoicing”. Jim Rohn lived such a life.
Jim’s family asked us to thank all of you for your concern, prayers and love toward their father and grandfather, which has been so evident during the past 18 months.
Darren Hardy, dedicated student and Jim Rohn protégé for more than 15 years, said of Jim, “He was the most influential man in my life, second only to my father. Jim cemented my philosophical foundation and nourished my mind with ideas and ambitions never before imagined. He chiseled my character seminar by seminar, tape by tape, book by book, then CD by CD, hour by hour. Jim emboldened my belief, in me and in my most daring dreams. When I fell and was bloodied, he was there with encouraging words to help me get back up. When I didn’t think I could go on, Jim convinced me I was stronger than I imagined. When I wanted a shortcut, he reminded me there aren’t any. Even when I got too caught up in trying to achieve and succeed, Jim compelled me to leave room to live, to laugh and to love.”
Stuart Johnson, business associate and long-time admirer, said, “I was first introduced to the philosophies and teachings of Jim Rohn almost 25 years ago. And he made an immediate impression on me. I was amazed by how this modest and unassuming man could communicate such an extraordinarily powerful message in simple and straightforward terms. In person, one-on-one, he was as humble and down-to-earth as he was in front of an audience of thousands. I will treasure my personal memories of Jim and know that I will forever benefit from the wisdom of this remarkable man.”
There will be a private funeral held in the coming days. Plans and details are also being arranged for a Public Memorial Service to be held in the Los Angeles area in the coming weeks. Details will be announced upon final confirmation.
We know Mr. Rohn is looking down on us at this very moment with a smile saying I did it, I gave it my all, I went for it, now it’s your turn. Go for it. Make your life a life worth living well!
View a special tribute to Jim below produced earlier this year and debuted at the March 2009 SUCCESS Symposium. You are also encouraged to post your thoughts and remembrances of Jim on the Memorial Wall below.
Jim fondly closed his programs with the following sentiments: “I go with you in all the experience that we’ve had. But I promise you this as we leave here: I will not leave you behind. I’ll take you with me in my thoughts and in my heart.”