The match king: ivar kreuger, the financial genius behind a century of wall street scandals - frank partnoy

Partnoy writes an all-too prescient parable of how unregulated markets, greed, and unchecked ambition can wreak havoc on an economic system.

At the height of the roaring 20s, Swedish migr 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 his suicide in 1932, it became clear that Kreuger was not all he seemed: evidence surfaced of 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 todays markets.

In this gripping financial biography, Frank Partnoy 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.