I'll be out of town at the Scholastic Chess of Indiana Team Championships with 3 teams on Saturday in Hammond, IN on Saturday and may not respond to posts late Friday and Saturday.
It's a 550 mile round trip. I calculated the additional cost of gas because of the unprovoked Netanyahu/Trump war in Iran to be $22.
Multiply that by 15 for me and the 14 families going up there from our schools and it's an extra $330 for just the gas our teams will be spending to attend this tournament compared to a month ago.
Multiply the number of $15 by 100 million vehicles every time Americans fill up their gas tanks and we get $1.5 BILLION, $1,500,000,000 more spent for just gas on every tank fill up.
Multiply that $15 more to fill up our tanks by 1.6 billion vehicles in the world and that number goes up to $24,000,000,000 more money spent to fill up everybody's gas tanks on each fill up compared to before the unjustified Netanyahu/Trump war.
This is especially impacting the cost of shipping goods via ground, air or water as fuels is a major expense. This extra cost will get passed on to consumers.
This has ALREADY done great harm to our economy. A few more weeks of this, on top of the other flailing economic indicators means a recession is inevitable.
Not just in the US but globally.
I agree with the essence of your post. I am also pessimistic of the economy. But one point you made is an error of sorts. You cannot accurately assert that there would be 100 million or 1.6 billion vehicles. Because that's what happens (the mkts function) when you have price increases due to supply shock. You winnow out the marginal drive/vehicle, so that reduces the number of vehicles. (minor point)
Thanks very much, joj!
I agree 100% with your assessment.
What you stated is actually what would happen and those numbers would be much too high.
I wasn't trying to do an accurate estimate as much as showing how big of a drag this will be on the economy using the stats on current vehicles on the road as a starting point.
Let's just cut those numbers in half to make it more real, adjusting for your great point.
Hey, Coach, how did we do?
Was the Road trip a successful one?
(Inquiring minds 'need' to know!)
Thanks for asking tjc!
It was a success, no matter what the final results were. Just playing in the state championships made that so.
Last year's 12th and under team (below) from North High School finished in 5th place, highest for our school ever so their expectations with 4 of the same players was extremely high.
They didn't finish as high up this year and THEY were bummed but their coach and parents were just as proud and 1 disappointing(for them) chess tournament does not define these brilliant, hard working, likeable and well respected young men that play chess with sold-gold sportsmanship. It's a great privilege to play a small role in the positive developmental process of these rising stars!
Our 6th and under team from McCutchanville finished tied for 10th place, which was pretty impressive out of the 42 teams that qualified in that division and 100 teams that started out in the state at the regional qualifiers. We had a whopping 7 players that had to rotate on the 4 boards all day which made it tougher than the usual 4 student team. Our top 3 players only had a total of 1 loss all day.
In the 3rd and under division, our team from McCutchanville had the biggest challenge with only 3 players (of the 4) each round. This meant that board 4 automatically got a loss every round. Regardless, each of them got at least 2 points(wins) and we were extremely pleased with that team finishing in the top half.
Competing, challenging yourself and teammates makes it a thrilling, invaluable life experience! Well done team and coach!
(Coach, if your teams are in need of financial support, I trust a 'friendly' message will be favorably received by this Forum!)
tjc,
That is an extremely generous offer!
We don't need any money but your kind offer and supportive thoughts mean a great deal!
Another huge benefit for the kids is that they were there with their extremely supportive/awesome parent(s) and making it a family affair. Several parents were going to Chicago or Indianapolis afterwards to visit family or do some fun/interesting things.
We started our Spring Break yesterday.
Here are the final results of the Scholastic Chess of Indiana Championships. I also updated the previous review: