DFW group works for conversion to peacetime economy

by Roger Kallenberg of Dallas Peace Times

The Dallas Peace Center’s Economics Committee supports free markets and fair trade, and has joined the Dallas Regional Chamber (DRC), to help free our own.

The Dallas-Ft. Worth region’s economy is not prepared for a more peaceful world. It rests heavily on defense spending. Over the years, Speakers of the House Sam Rayburn and Jim Wright, Presidents Lyndon Johnson, George Bush and George W. Bush, and many other Texas politicians have both won and kept our weapons contracts worth billions of dollars.

The defense industry is not a free market. The production and profits of our major defense contractors are the results of political compromise, not a response to market forces. (Who, for example, would buy a Lockheed-Martin plane? Unarmed, they cost over ten million dollars, take several thousand dollars per hour to operate, require years of training and practice to fly, and only have two seats. How much demand could there be?)

More than the hundreds of billions of dollars we are taxed to meet its demands, the weapons industry diverts our most talented engineers, machinists and scientist, and thus beggars our region’s ability to compete in world markets. If we can free the workers, patents, processes, instruments, and facilities, our industries will be competitive.

Triage

The great majority of the businesses in DFW region and a majority of businesses represented by the DRC do not have defense contracts. They support the Chamber to maintain the general vitality and health of our region’s economy. It matters little to them how their customers, clients, patrons or patients make their money.

The great majority of the 2,982* defense contractors in the DFW region have defense contracts which only supplement their non-defense business: We have wholesale grocers who contract to sell fruits and vegetables to army bases; radiologists who contract to read soldier’s x-rays; gasket manufacturers who make an F16 version; and architects who design training centers at navy bases. In the DFW region, in 2007, Frito-Lay Plano sold the DOD $75,043,857 worth of chips. Defense spending cuts will have unique effects on each enterprise.

The Basket Cases: Five of the 2,982 DOD contractors in North Texas: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Dyncorp, Bell Helicopter Textron, and L-3 (what’s left of LTV in North Texas), accounted for over 80% of the total defense dollars spent here 2000-2007. In 2007, the Big 5 had contracts worth $17,126,316,415. Making jet fighters, missiles, attack helicopters, and bombs is all they know. They and other DOD prime contractors in DFW will be the primary focus of our study.

The default for planning is doing nothing. Companies fail all the time. Their ex-employees, inventories and equipment, and building facilities go on the market and are recycled. Except for their engineers/scientists and some low-level managers, who need retraining to fit into civilian businesses, it is an efficient disposal system. No government studies, no debates, no politics required. Adjustments are made.

The biggest problem here in North Texas is scale. When an entire industry fails and it effects tens of thousands of workers and thousands of businesses, workers leave the area and plants are left abandoned. See Gary, Ind., Detroit, Mich. How can we ease the transition?

The fun part

What can we do? We excel at filling metal boxes with electronics. We have a penchant for precision. A green taxi? Pollution monitoring equipment? Energy conservation? Super fast trains? Emergency relief and evacuation transports? Portable hospitals? We have the resources to make whatever we can imagine.

The first step is to get a more accurate picture of what we have. Budgets and annual reports don’t tell us the talents and interests of our scientists, the specialties of our engineers, how many years of machinist experience we have, what kind of material and technical resources we might have available. Future steps will include working with our community colleges and universities for research and retraining, in addition to creating a pool of venture capital.

Use your imagination. Join us on the Economics Committee. Contact Roger@dallaspeacecenter.org.

Disclaimer

The Dallas Peace Center’s Economics Committee is not focused on economic justice, the redistribution of wealth, or poverty. Rather, it seeks to moderate political and religious antagonisms between peoples by increasing the free and fair trade between them. Trade is the ballast, the steadying weight with which to weather the storms of passion rocked by political and religious leaders. If we can free the hundreds of billions of dollars tied up in weapons production, and create economic interdependence, personal trust, and hopeful patience through trade, we can afford to address a lot of our problems.