I have a box that I've turned into a long rectangular shape by adjusting the x scale.  I've added some other primitives like a ball etc.  When I parent the ball to the box the ball then takes on the scaling of the box!!   Now, if I export the box as an OBJ and then import it back in all the x,y, and z scaling is set back to 100%.  Then, if I parent a sphere/ball to this then no weird geometry.

How can I do this in Poser without exporting and importing it back in?

I dont think you can , the export and import is a usual way of doing objects in Poser .
You might want to look at one of the free modellers to build stuff. Wings3d or anim8or are both good to start with. Or truespace or blender .

Just to fill in some information here:  Poser has two types of scaling.  Regula' old scaling (Star Trek scaling which doesn't propagate to children) and Propagating scaling (scaling of an object is propagated to its children).  Most figures have propagating scaling on the BODY and none on other body parts (though the head 'automatically' propagates scaling to the eye body parts).

Unfortunately, you cannot change the scaling type in Poser directly.  You have to edit the Poser file and change the channels from "Scale" to "propagatingScale" or vice versa.

Propagating scaling might explain why parenting a prop to another causes the former to take on the scaling of the latter.

I was hoping there was a python utility that I could apply to a scaled primitive so that everything is reset to 100% but with the new size in place.  Thanks for your help.

As Kuroyume mentioned, you can edit the PP2 file to decide
on which scale controls the others.  It's not hard at all; just
find the parent part, and change the lines as follows:

propagatingScale Scale
to
scale Scale

propagatingScaleX xScale
to
scaleX xScale

and similarly with the Y and Z.

You can also do this inside a PZ3 if you have, for instance,
a human figure parented to a chair, and you want to be 
able to rescale the chair without distorting the human.

Do I need a special editor to edit the PP2? Any tricks in saving it?

Any text editor like NotePad or TexEdit should do as long as it saves strictly ASCII text and not add other stuff or save in another format (like Word).  I use UltraEdit myself.
You might want to close Poser while editing - it has this thing about locking files so that they cannot be updated while it's running.

I can't get that method to work - I did a replace all and it goofed up the prop entirely.  So, to normaize the prop and all objects I can export as OBJ.  

How can I do this in such a way that when I import it back it comes back as separate objects parented but geometries and scales normalized??

I notice that when I export to OBJ and bring the same OBJ into VUE I am able to deal with any object in the group.  Is there a setting I can check when I reimport into Poser that will still allow me to access the pieces?