Monthly Archives: September 2022

Van der Valk too Clever by Far

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Van der Valk

I watched the first episode of Series Two of Van der Valk last night and came away unimpressed. I didn’t really like the first season of Van der Valk all that much either but, I said to myself, why not give it a chance?

The show follows a team of detectives in Amsterdam led by Peter Van der Valk. They are an eclectic group to say the least. The show is actually a reboot from an earlier series which I have not seen so I can’t really make any comparisons. The new show is flashy, stylish, filled with dramatic music, tense scenes, and intense characters.

My Review of Van der Valk

My review of the episode can be summed up in a single line: too clever. That’s simplifying all my problems with the show but it does express my general frustration with crime dramas and mysteries that make the solution so convoluted I have no chance of figuring anything out. Of course, I actually figured out the actual killer from the beginning but the clues that led us there were beyond baffling.

Basically, our killer left notes on the corpses with cryptic clues as to the next victim. Then one member of the team eventually had some sort of epiphany of understanding that led to the next scene. The word ethics must mean Spinoza! The word fire must mean Prometheus. The word God must mean Inventor but then, also be an acronym. Each revelation made less sense than the previous.

It seemed to me someone came up with the clever idea of having the murderer use Spinoza as an inspiration but then just went about it in the laziest way possible. I get using a local philosopher as a plot point but the story had nothing to do with Spinoza and the three great disasters of Amsterdam except in the most convoluted way possible. I lost track of it and just kept shaking my head and sighing in bewilderment.

While the effort to be overly clever certainly made my experience watching the first episode of Van der Valk unpleasant, it was not my only issue. Spoilers coming.

The Fish Tank

The fish tank in which the young woman drowned was way too high for the scene to happen. The murderer could not push the victim into the tank. The elevated tank came up to the chest of the detectives. You can’t bend over that way, it needed to be at waist height.

The First Victim in the Windfarm

Our murderer is not a large man. How he managed to get his victim up on the cross in the middle of the wind farm is beyond my understand. I’m willing to give a little leeway here. Maybe he rented a truck with a crane or something.

The Publicist and the Car

It’s revealed the publicist, who drowned implausibly as described above, was murdered because she took a bribe in order to stop her campaign to help the local artists. The bribe being a fancy car. This seemed utterly improbably to me. Amsterdam is a city well-known for an excellent public transit system. I can see her taking a large sum of money, but a sports car that she needs to pay upkeep and taxes on? Made no sense to me.

The Husband

The first victim’s husband was impossibly bizarre. The story of his separation from his wife and his violent abuse didn’t tie into the story at all. It just seemed an excuse to have a dislikable character as a possible suspect. His transparent lies made it clear he couldn’t be the murderer.

The Date

I can’t even begin to tell you everything I found wrong in the date between the detective and the ink maker. First off, it’s a stretch just to imagine she agreed to go out with him. I found his bumbling stupidity beyond credibility and Van der Valk ridiculing the poor fellow incessantly as some sort attempt at comic relief came across as completely unrealistic.

The poor fellow, I can’t even remember his name, seems to be on the show simply so people can make fun of him.

The Final Scene

Wait, the other bombs were real? When did he plant them. How does he have explosive knowledge. His reasoning for the brutal murders makes almost no sense. His final dialog with our hero went on and on. And on. And on. And on.

While they were talking, you can clearly see the Ferris wheel revolving normally in the background although supposedly it is being evacuated.

The Acting

I think the actors do their best with the lines they’ve got. It’s a mess but at least they try.

Conclusion

Blah. Too clever. Trying too hard to be dramatic. The serial killer leaving cryptic clues is tired and boring writing at this point. A good crime drama doesn’t need to save the world. It can just be a good crime drama. Van der Valk isn’t that.

Tom Liberman

The Pump and Dump Suicide of Gustavo Arnal

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Gustavo Arnal

An alleged Pump and Dump scheme led the Chief Financial Officer of Bed, Bath & Beyond, Gustavo Arnal, to kill himself by leaping from a New York Skyscraper. This suicide is a symptom of an untrustworthy market environment destroying lives all across this country, and not just for CFOs like Gustavo Arnal.

Heavily involved in the death of Gustavo Arnal is GameStop Corp. Chairman Ryan Cohen who allegedly convinced Gustavo Arnal to engage in the pump and dump scheme, only to sell out his shares for a massive profit.

I don’t much care about Gustavo Arnal or Ryan Cohen to be honest. If what is said about them is true, they are thieves and, frankly, murderers. What I do care about is the complete bankruptcy of ethics in the stock market that destroys the lives of many citizens of this country.

What Happened

Gustavo Arnal and Ryan Cohen reportedly created an artificial interest in purchasing Bed, Bath & Beyond shares. The did this in a number of ways but the important thing here isn’t the details, but the result. They hoped to make millions of dollars by selling their own shares of the stock at inflated prices. The stock went from $4.38 per share to over $30 per share over the course of about a month.

The Result

The result of all of this is quite predictable. Cohen, who sold his shares, made a huge amount of money. Now, I’m a big believer in capitalism so you’d think I’d say, good for him. Well done. Not in this case. In this case the price of the stock went up not because the company showed any signs of being more valuable, but simply because people were manipulated into thinking they could get rich.

The problem is not that Cohen got richer, it’s this money came largely from average investors who trusted the false information they were fed. Many people lost money they cannot afford to lose. This money was, for all practical purposes, stolen from them.

Caveat Emptor

Let the buyer beware. I agree. The people who bought into the Bed, Bath & Beyond stock manipulation should have known better. My financial advisors were not fooled. I lost no money. That being said, stupidity does not excuse fraud and theft. What Gustavo Arnal and Ryan Cohen are accused of doing was not only illegal but it was highly unethical and extremely harmful.

Pump and Dump is Rampant

This sort of stock manipulation is rampant in the market. People are losing their life savings in cryptocurrency scams, penny stock manipulations, and more. Celebrities, influencers, politicians, and more are leaping at the chance to steal from you to enrich themselves. It’s working.

Prison

Now, finally, law enforcement is catching up to those who engage in this behavior. Charges are being filed, lawsuits are pending, and people are going to jail. That doesn’t help someone who lost their child’s college fund or their retirement nest egg. That money is largely gone and will never, ever come back to anyone except a few law firms who successfully sue the thieves.

Solutions

One of the things I try to avoid here is simply laying blame without providing solutions. The solution here is multilayered. Law enforcement stepping in is a good thing but there will always be scammers when people can be scammed. There will always be drug dealers when people want drugs. The enforcement and interdiction side of the equation is the smaller part of the battle.

What must happen to stop this is people learning and applying critical thinking skills. I’ve written a number of articles touching on the topic which I’d encourage you to peruse.

We cannot stop people from stealing when millions of dollars are available for the taking. For everyone we arrest, five more will take their place. Cutting the head off the snake does no good. It is only when people learn to think critical and not let the allure of riches cloud their judgment that we will leave this scourge behind.

It is a scourge, of that there is no doubt. The suffering engendered by pump and dump schemes cuts a wide swathe across this country. From urban to rural. From farmers to fast food workers. People lose more than their money, they lose hope. They lose faith in the system.

Tom Liberman