No way, Sherlock!

I've mused here once or twice before about the inability of TV producers to come up with a realistic depiction of the world of business.  We had another example of this last evening, in a somewhat unexpected locale: the season finale of the Sherlock Holmes update, "Elementary", this year's most successful new network series.

Holmes finally gets to meet his nemesis, Moriarty, whose identity is a big surprise (and undoubtedly not one that Conan Doyle would have contemplated).  Moriarty is in New York for nefarious purposes and naturally Holmes, using his normal technique of sticking bits of paper onto the wall, figures out the plan.  Remarkably, it's sort of based in reality.  The Republic of Macedonia has come up with an agreement with Greece that will  allow it to join the Euro, but Moriarty has a scheme to make large sums of money by derailing the deal at the last minute.

What Holmes supposedly figures out is that if Macedonia joins the Euro, the Macedonian dinar will become worthless, whereas if its admission to the single currency is vetoed by Greece, the dinar will soar.  Moriarty, of course, has figured out the same thing, and has strapped on a big dinar position that will increase massively in value if the nefarious plan succeeds.

Evidently neither Holmes, nor Moriarty, nor the producers and writers of Elementary, has any grounding in economics. When a country enters the Euro, its currency doesn't become worthless: it just gets converted, at a rate that's set well in advance.  And if any country were to get derailed just at the point of Euro entry, there's no doubt that its domestic currency would collapse in value, not soar, so anyone with a big speculative long position, like Moriarty, would get hosed.

In other words, on this occasion Holmes's formidable brain and inexorable logic have led him to a conclusion that is in fact entirely implausible and illogical, even if it does serve the purposes of the plot.  That never happened when Conan Doyle was at the helm!

And just who does Moriarty turn out to be?  Well, as you may not have seen the show, I won't spoil it for you.  Let's just say I've had to be a little bit careful how I've written this piece so as not to give it away.