Standard Volt and Ampere
This all brings me to wonder, how much of what we use is calibrated to
  someone else's meter. And how many of those meters, are calibrated to
  yet someone else's.. and on and on. Seems like one big house of cards.


and...


  Is there some sort of certification sticker one should look for when
  buying a meter or other equipment that indicates it is indeed tested
  to the actual SI values vs tested against say a Fluke...


You have described precisely what happens. You don't need to have an exotic, expensive, "golden standard" in your company's in-house lab, as long as you have certified calibration traceability (if you need it) down to an accredited lab that actually has it.

And yes, they actually put in your instrument a sticker issued by the accredited lab, with the date of expiracy of the calibration validity on it. I've seen it myself.

In-house, you'll find yourself in one of these situations:



I recall that when I was working in the aerospace industry we were required to have all measurement instruments calibrated, with their sticker and traceable calibration certificates and associated documentation. The test procedures ("work standards"), instruments to be used, and their calibration traceability, all were required to be exhaustively documented and submitted for customer approval well before any actual delivery testing was performed on the product.

Of course, every industry has its own requirements and quality levels. I don't think anyone can reasonably expect that a Chinese manufacturer of cheap multimeters has such a calibration program in place, because it wouldn't make sense to them or to their customers.

Back to the traceability chain: the NMIs in the figure above are the National Metrological Institutes. The NMI for USA is the NIST. A closer look at the "food-chain" of metrology is illustrated in the figure below, in case you wonder:



Source of images: Calibration and traceability in measuring technology