The Bottom Line

Here is the simplest law of business. Make whatever you make for as cheaply as possible and sell it for as much as possible. But remember the cheaper you make it the less people will want it, and the higher the price, the less people will be able to buy it.

So when you are making you widget, always look for things that don't directly effect the final product, and that's where you cut your corners. Take for example security.

Having a secure factory adds little to the end project. Your customers aren't going to pick up a bottle of glass cleaner and say, "Well I can tell this was made in a secure facility." It's like worker safety. Nobody buys a can of soup and thinks, "Well this might cost a little more, but at least the workers who made it worked in safe conditions."

Of course with worker safety, the government has stepped in and forced certain minimum safety requirements. But there are still areas where you can cut corners.

For example lets say you own a chemical plant and your plant holds chemicals deadly enough to kill thousands of Americans. According to the EPA, there are 7,605 plants in the United States where an accident or sabotage could threaten more than 1,000 people, and there are 123 plants where such an incident could threaten over a million people. Now you'd think, what with all this focus on Terrorism, that such plants would be forced to have tight security.

ell, you'd be wrong. Yep these chemical manufacturers are free to have lax security, and pass the savings on to, well, themselves.

The Bush Administration has shown little to no interest in correcting this problem, although they did switch the handling of this issue from the EPA to the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security revised both of the above numbers down significantly (to 4,391 and 2 respectively), and installed security cameras in seven states, apparently.

Mr. Ridge has set in motion plans to install security cameras at chemical plants in seven states - but not in some high-threat states like Florida, Ohio and Minnesota. Although the department visits plants and offers advice, unlike the E.P.A., it doesn't have the power to enforce security measures and relies instead on voluntary efforts by the industry. Without enforceable requirements, chemical firms will remain reluctant to put sufficient safeguards in place, for fear that their competitors will scrimp on security and thus be able to undercut them on price.

I happen to live in Florida so that one jumped out at me a little bit.

We'll have to see if someone brings this up at the debates. As previously noted, John Kerry is aware of this problem, and prepared to do something about it. President Bush, thus far, seems less willing to attack this problem.