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The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals
The Match King Ivar Kreuger The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals Author:Frank Partnoy At the height of the roaring ?20s, Swedish émigré Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression.Yet after Kreuger?s suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged. Driven by success to adopt ever-... more »more perilous practices, Kreuger had turned to shell companies in tax havens, fudged accounting figures, off-balance-sheet accounting, even forgery. He created a raft of innovative financial products? many of them precursors to instruments wreaking havoc in today?s markets. When his Wall Street empire collapsed, millions went bankrupt.Frank Partnoy, a frequent commentator on financial disaster for the Financial Times, New York Times, NPR, and CBS?s ?60 Minutes,? recasts the life story of a remarkable yet forgotten genius in ways that force us to re-think our ideas about the wisdom of crowds, the invisible hand, and the free and unfettered market.« less