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Ivar Kreuger

Ivar Kreuger (2 March 1880 – 12 March 1932) was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908, he co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB, which specialized in new building techniques. By aggressive investments and innovative financial instruments, he built a global match and financial empire. Between the two world wars, he negotiated match monopolies with European, Central American and South American governments, and finally controlled between two thirds and three quarters of worldwide match production, becoming known as the "Match King".

Kreuger's financial empire has been described by one biographer as a Ponzi scheme, based on the supposedly fantastic profitability of his match monopolies. However, in a Ponzi scheme early investors are paid dividends from their own money or that of subsequent investors. Although Kreuger did this to some extent, he also controlled many legitimate and often very profitable businesses, and owned banks, real estate, a gold mine, and pulp and industrial companies, besides his many match companies. Many of them have survived to this day. Kreuger & Toll, for example, was composed of bona fide businesses, and there were others like it. Another biographer called Kreuger a "genius and swindler", and John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that he was the "Leonardo of larcenists". Kreuger's financial empire collapsed during the Great Depression. The Price Waterhouse autopsy of his financial empire stated: "The manipulations were so childish that anyone with but a rudimentary knowledge of bookkeeping could see the books were falsified." In March 1932, he was found dead in the bedroom of his flat in Paris. The police concluded that he had committed suicide, but decades later, his brother Torsten claimed that he had been murdered, which spawned some controversial literature on the subject.

Early life
Kreuger was born in Kalmar, the eldest son of Ernst August Kreuger (1852–1946), an industrialist in the match industry in that city, and his wife Jenny Emelie Kreuger (née Forssman; 1856–1949). Ivar Kreuger had five siblings: Ingrid (born 1877), Helga (born 1878), Torsten (born 1884), Greta (born 1889) and Britta (born 1891).

At school, Ivar skipped ahead two classes by taking private lessons. At age 16, he began studies at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, from which he graduated with combined master's degrees covering both the faculties of mechanical and civil engineering, at the age of 20.

Personal life
Ivar Kreuger never married, but lived for many years in different periods with Ingeborg Eberth (1889–1977), family name Hässler, born in Stockholm, who worked as a physical therapist in Stockholm.

They met for the first time in Stockholm in 1913. According to the book she wrote after Krueger's death in 1932, he was not interested in marriage or children and was very much focused on his business. She broke off the relationship in 1917 and moved to Denmark, where she married a Danish engineer with the name Eberth. They had a daughter in 1919, Grete Eberth (later to be an actress in Stockholm, married name Mac Laury 1919–2002). After some years, however, she divorced Eberth and moved back to Stockholm with her daughter, reuniting with Kreuger. Mr. Eberth once kidnapped the daughter in Stockholm and brought her back to Denmark. Shortly thereafter Ingeborg, without notifying the authorities or police, went down to Denmark and brought the daughter back to Sweden by hiring a private fishing boat in Denmark that took them over Öresund to Sweden. The new period with Kreuger lasted until around 1928; after that they just met occasionally. The last time they met was in November 1931, just before Kreuger started on his final trip to America. Eberth received the news about his death in Paris on March 12, 1932, from newspaper headlines the day after. Kreuger had private apartments in Stockholm, New York, Paris, and Warsaw, and a country place used during the summer season on the private island Ängsholmen in the archipelago of Stockholm. On business tours in Europe, he preferred to meet his business associates in Paris and then stayed in his flat at 5, Av. Victor Emanuel III (today named Avenue Franklin-D.-Roosevelt). He owned several specially designed motor yachts, among them Elsa built in 1906, Loris (1913), Tärnan (1925), and the most famous, Svalan (Swallow), built at Lidingö in 1928, a 37 ft, 4.9 ton motor yacht, equipped with a V12, 31.9 liter Hispano-Suiza engine from the US company Wright, with 650 HP output, capable of more than 50 knots (≈ 57 mph). A replica of the boat has been built.

He had a large private library in both his apartments in Stockholm and New York and quite a large art collection. The paintings were sold at different auctions held in September 1932, as all of Kreuger's private assets were incorporated into the bankruptcy. The collection in Stockholm comprised 88 original paintings, among them 19 by Anders Zorn and a great number by old masters from the Netherlands. The New York collection included original paintings by Rembrandt and Anthony van Dyck.

Kreuger became the major shareholder when the Swedish film company AB Svensk Filmindustri (SF) was founded in 1919 and because of that, sometimes met celebrities from the film industry. In June 1924, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were invited by SF to Stockholm and were guided around the Stockholm archipelago in Kreuger's motor yacht Loris. A five-minute film sequence of this occasion is stored in SF's film archive. Pickford, Fairbanks, Kreuger, Charles Magnusson (the manager for SF), Greta Garbo and various SF employees appear in the film.

Early years in the United States
After the start of the 20th century, Kreuger spent seven years traveling and working abroad as an engineer in the USA, Mexico, South Africa and other countries, but spent most of the time in the US. In South Africa, he ran a restaurant for a short time together with his friend Anders Jordahl, but they soon sold the restaurant. At an early stage, he came in contact with the patented Kahn System for concrete-steel constructions that was exploited by Julius Kahn's Trussed Concrete Steel Company, when working for different engineering companies, among them The Consolidated Engineering & Construction Co. and Purdy & Henderson in New York. This new technique had not been introduced in Sweden at that time. In 1907, he managed to get the representative rights for the system for both the Swedish and the German markets, and at the end of 1907, he returned to Sweden with the goal of introducing the new methods in both countries at the same time. At that time, one of the experts in Sweden in concrete-steel constructions was his cousin Henrik Kreüger working at KTH in Stockholm.

The building contractor and his innovations

In May 1908, Kreuger formed the construction firm Kreuger & Toll in Sweden with the engineer Paul Toll, at that time working for the construction company Kasper Höglund AB, and his cousin Henrik Kreüger, working at the faculty of civil engineering at KTH, as a consulting engineer for the company. In Germany, he formed the company Deutsche Kahneisengesellschaft together with a colleague from his time in America, Anders Jordahl.

The concrete-steel construction method of constructing buildings was not fully accepted in Sweden at that time and in order to market the new technique, Kreuger held several lectures and wrote an illustrated article on the subject in a leading engineering magazine, Teknisk Tidskrift. The new technology was a success and the firm won several prestigious contracts, such as the construction of the Stockholm Olympic Stadium (1911–12); the foundation work for the new Stockholm City Hall (1912–13) and the department store NK (1913–14) in Stockholm. The chief engineer behind these advanced projects was Henrik Kreüger.

Innovation in the construction business also included a definite commitment to finish the building on time. Hitherto the financial risk of delays were assumed by the clients. Kreuger & Toll was the first firm in Europe to commit to finish projects by a fixed date, thus shifting the risk to the builder, who after all was in the best position to reduce delays. When Kreuger won the contract to build a six-story "skyscraper", he promised that if construction wasn't finished by a particular date Kreuger & Toll would give the client a partial refund of $1,200 (about $18,000 in today's currency )for each late day. It is noteworthy that Kreuger & Toll's entire capital would have covered just two days of being late. The client, in turn, agreed to pay a bonus for every day the building was finished before the due date. Kreuger & Toll finished early and subsequently earned completion bonuses for every project. Within a few years, Kreuger & Toll was seen as the best building company in Sweden and one of the top firms in all of Europe.

Within six years after its incorporation, Kreuger & Toll earned annual profits of around $200,000 and was paying a substantial dividend of 15%. In 1917, the company was split into two separate companies: Kreuger & Toll Construction AB, with the majority of shares owned by Paul Toll. Ivar Kreuger was not among the board members in the construction company. How much of Paul Toll's company Ivar Kreuger owned has not been revealed—just that Paul Toll owned 60% in 1917 and, around 1930, 66% of the construction company. Kreuger & Toll Construction Co. has never shown up in any Kreuger & Toll Holding organisation charts.

Kreuger & Toll Holding became his financial holding company, with Ivar Kreuger as the general manager and major share holder. He controlled it with a tight grip. The board of directors consisted of Ivar, his father, Paul Toll and two very close colleagues.

After Ivar got involved in his father's match factories in Kalmar, he became more focused on "constructing" new companies or taking control of other corporations - usually paying with his own securities instead of cash - rather than buildings and bridges. Thus, by 1927, Ivar had bought banks, mining companies, railways, timber and paper firms, film distributors, real estate in several European cities as well as a controlling stake in L.M. Ericsson & Co., Sweden's leading phone company. He controlled about 50% of the world market in iron ore and cellulose. He owned mines all over the world including the Boliden mine in Sweden, which had one of the richest gold deposits outside South Africa in addition to other minerals.

Kreuger formed Swedish Match by merging his father's business with other match factories he had quietly bought during World War I. Its initial capital was around $10 million ($ in dollars) and Ivar owned about half of it, held all senior positions and controlled the board of directors.

The Swedish banker Oscar Rydbeck (1878–1951) became a close associate and an important teacher for Ivar in the financing business. He worked for Kreuger & Toll as a consultant from around 1912 until the Kreuger Crash in 1932 and was a member of its board of directors. For not having carried out his duties as a director he went to jail for 10 months after Ivar's death.

The match business
In 1911 and 1912, the Kreuger family match factories in Kalmar, Fredriksdal and Mönsterås, run by his father Ernst Kreuger, uncle Fredrik Kreuger and his brother Torsten Kreuger, encountered financial problems. Kreuger was then advised by his banker Oscar Rydbeck to turn the factories into a stock corporation in order to raise more capital. This was the starting point for the reformation of the Swedish match industry as well as the major match companies in Norway and Finland. The goal was to get control of the entire match industry in Scandinavia.

With the family match factories as the base, Kreuger first founded the Swedish corporation AB Kalmar-Mönsterås Tändsticksfabrik in 1912. His father, Ernst, and uncle Fredrik, became the major shareholders and his brother Torsten was appointed the general manager. Ivar became a member of the board.

A merger between this company with several other small match companies in Sweden, the company AB Svenska Förenade Tändsticksfabriker was founded in 1913 with Ivar Kreuger as the general manager. Later, by merging with the largest match company in Sweden, AB Jönköping-Vulcan, Svenska Tändsticks AB (Swedish Match) was founded in 1917. Ivar had originally tried to convince AB Jönköping-Vulcan to merge in December 1912, but they had not been interested as Vulcan was the dominating match company in Sweden. Ivar then started to acquire all of the match companies as well as most of the raw material companies he could find in and around Sweden and then finally got AB Jönköping-Vulcan to accept the merger. He had been so persuasive in arguing for the merger that he managed to overvalue his side of the deal so that it was essentially the smaller organization taking over the larger one. It was his first big venture in inflating values, which became his prime tactic thereafter. One of the main designers behind this operation, besides Ivar, was his banker Rydbeck. The total number of shares in the new company was 450,000. Ivar Kreuger personally owned 223,000 shares and his new holding company, Kreuger & Toll Holding AB, 60,000.

This company group now covered the entire match industry in Sweden, including all the major companies that manufactured the production machines used in the factories. The total number of employees working in match production in Sweden in 1917 was around 9000. It also had control over major companies supplying the raw material for the match industry. During this time Kreuger also acquired the largest match manufacturing companies in Norway (Bryn and Halden) and in Finland (Wiborgs and Kekkola).

However, Kreuger not only "acquired" companies but also introduced a new way of thinking in the Swedish match industry with large scale production facilities as well as ideas to increase efficiency in production, administration, distribution, and marketing.

He managed to unite the Swedish match industry as well as the major match companies in Norway and Finland. With this new company structure the match industry in Scandinavia became a major competitor to large manufacturers elsewhere. Ivar's methods resembled those John D. Rockefeller used in the formation of the Standard Oil Trust transforming dozens of struggling factories into a strong and profitable monopoly. The methods had become illegal in the USA because of anti-trust laws, but were not against the law in Sweden at the time.

A German chemist had invented phosphorus matches in 1832 but they were dangerous because the yellow phosphorus used was poisonous and because it was in the match head and thus could easily light by accident. The Swedes improved on the design by using a safer red phosphorus, which they put on the striking surface of the matchbox. They called them "safety matches". They made Sweden the leading exporter of matches and made matches the most important Swedish export.

It should be remembered that in the early part of the 20th century matches were a necessity for smoking and the lighting of stoves and gas appliances among other uses, and therefore demand for them was highly inelastic, meaning that a monopolist could raise prices (and hence profits) significantly without much affecting the quantity sold.

By expanding the Swedish Match company through acquisition of government-created monopolies, the Swedish company became the world's largest match manufacturer. Kreuger set up an affiliate to Kreuger & Toll AB in the United States, and together with Lee, Higginson & Co. in New York, formed the International Match Corporation. This group eventually came to control almost 75% of the world production in matches.

Other business
From 1925 to 1930, years when many countries in Europe were suffering after the First World War, Kreuger's companies gave loans to governments to speed up reconstruction. As a security, the governments would grant him the match monopoly in their country. This means that Kreuger gained a monopoly in match production, sales, or distribution, or a complete monopoly. The monopoly agreements differed from country to country. The capital was raised to a large extent through loans from Swedish and American banks, combined with issuing a large amount of participating debentures. Kreuger also often moved money from one corporation he controlled to another.

Kreuger did not limit himself to matches, but gained control of most of the forestry industry in northern Sweden and planned to become head of a cellulose cartel. He also attempted to create a telephone monopoly in Sweden.

After founding the pulp manufacturer SCA, in 1929 Kreuger was able to acquire the majority shares in the telephone company Ericsson; the mining company Boliden (gold); major interests in the ball bearing manufacturer SKF; the bank Skandinaviska Kreditaktiebolaget and others.

Abroad he acquired Deutsche Unionsbank in Germany and Union de Banques à Paris in France, often with the acquired company's own money. These maneuvers were made both necessary and possible by his invention, decades ahead of his time, of Enron-style financial engineering, which reported profits when there were none and paid out ever increasing dividends by attracting new investment and/or looting the treasury of a newly acquired company.

By 1931, Kreuger controlled some 200 companies. However, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 turned out to be a major factor in exposing his accounting that ultimately proved fatal to both him and his empire.

In the spring of 1930, he visited the United States and gave a lecture about the situation in world economics at the Industrial Club of Chicago with the title "The transfer problem and its importance to the United States". He was invited by President Hoover to the White House to discuss the subject and in June he was awarded the title Doctor of Business Administration by Syracuse University, where he had worked as a young chief engineer when Archbold Stadium was built there in 1907.

In 1929, at the peak of his career, the Kreuger fortune was thought to be worth 30 billion Swedish kronor, equivalent to approximately US$100 billion in 2000, and consisting of more than 200 companies. In the same year, the total loans made by Swedish banks were barely 4 billion SEK.

Financial innovations and financial engineering
Obtaining a monopoly for the production and/or sale of matches in return for loans to governments was, in its essence, not a new way of doing business. Such schemes had been around for a long time (e.g. the Mississippi Bubble of John Law, and the South Sea Bubble) but Kreuger was very creative inventing new ways of financing business, while making sure that he kept control of his companies.

B-shares
Kreuger financed his activities by selling shares and bonds of his companies as well as through large bank loans, mainly the last two. The use of debt in addition to equity is called leverage and it magnifies both gains and losses.

With respect to selling shares, he invented dual class ownership shares since he did not want to lose control of his companies. He called the class of shares with reduced voting power B shares. One of Kreuger's biographers, Frank Partnoy, called it "an ingenious piece of financial engineering". Ivar began with Swedish Match where he divided the common shares into two classes. Each class would have the same claim to dividends and profits, but the B shares would carry only 1/1000 of a vote, compared to one vote for each A share. In this way Ivar could double the size of his capital, while diluting his control by just a fraction of a percent.

Presently such shares are sometimes called A Shares with the B Shares having more voting power, as is the case with Google for instance where they carry ten times more voting power than the A Shares.

As already stated, these types of shares are used to this day although, unlike in Kreuger's time, there are often restrictions in some markets and/or jurisdictions nowadays. The New York Stock Exchange, for example, allows companies to list dual-class voting shares. Once shares are listed, however, companies are not allowed to reduce the voting rights of the existing shares or issue a new class of superior voting shares.

There is a wide range of dual-class share structures and their use between countries. In Canada, for example, an estimated 20% to 25% of companies currently listed on the TSX make use of some form of dual-class share structure or special voting rights. In the United States on the other hand, where rules on dual-class shares are much more restrictive and investor opposition is more vocal, just over 2% of companies issue restricted shares.

Convertible gold debentures
Ivar and Lee Higginson & Co., his investment banker in the USA, decided to have International Match issue new securities called convertible gold debentures. "Debenture" is a debt instrument not secured by physical collateral or assets. They were issued to mature in 20 years and they were payable in either dollars or gold, at the holder's option. These bonds gave investors the right to receive annual interest payments of 6.5 percent from International Match, which was an attractive rate at the time.

Finally, these debentures were convertible, which meant that they could be converted into shares. If International Match performed well and the value of the shares increased, investors could switch from the debentures to the more valuable shares. The convertible feature made these securities particularly attractive: they have both downside protection (because in the case of bankruptcy the bond holders were paid before the shareholders) and upside potential. In other words, the best of both worlds. "Ivar and Lee Higginson had designed their first financial mousetrap."

Ivar's popularity helped Lee Higginson sell $15 million of International Match gold debentures, at a price of $94.50 for each $100 of principal amount. Investors paid $94.50 in return for the right to receive interest of $6.50 per year for 20 years (6.5 percent of the hundred dollars principal amount.). The deal raised a total of $14,175,000, i.e. 94.5 percent of $15 million.

American Certificates
Kreuger invented another financial instrument, which continues to be used and is nowadays known as American depositary receipts. That issue was called Kreuger & Toll "American Certificates". American investors had never seen an investment like this. It was part bond, part preferred stock, and part profit sharing option. The certificates enabled investors to gain exposure to a foreign company that had been paying dividends of 25 percent. It would be backed by the largest private loan to a foreign government (i.e. Germany) ever. Even in the midst of the growing panic investors went crazy for the issue and promised to buy 28 million dollars of the new securities. And this happened two days after Black Monday in 1929.

Binary foreign exchange option
The second Poland agreement also contained some extraordinary protection for International Match including a binary foreign exchange option, a kind of derivative contract, to protect International Match from any declines in the value of the dollar: "International Match Corporation shall have the right to obtain payment of interest in Dutch guilders or US dollars according to its choice and for all such payments one dollar shall be counted as 2½ guilders."

To retain control of Garanta, a company established to facilitate his deals, Ivar created another innovative financial provision, which meant that during the first four years until October 1, 1929, International Match Corporation had the right to appoint the managing director of Garanta who alone was entitled to sign for the company. On or after October 1, 1929, International Match Corporation had the right to acquire 60 percent of the shares at par. This option term secured both initial control over Garanta and the right to own a majority of Garanta's shares in the future.

Off balance sheet entities
This term means that details of an enterprise do not appear in the parent company's financial statements. Some of these entities were more or less secret. The associated debt, called "off balance sheet obligations", didn't appear in any financial statements of the companies Ivar controlled other than in summary form, if at all. Albert D. Berning of the firm Ernst & Ernst, International Match's auditor, rationalized it at the shareholder's meeting in 1926. He said "it is only customary to consolidate the assets and liabilities of companies in such a balance sheet when a substantial majority of the outstanding shares are owned by the parent company. Where less than such a majority is owned, the shares are included as investments." This invention gained rapid acceptance by others, e.g. Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. The former issued 250 million dollars' worth of complex securities (equivalent to about $ in dollars) in 1929. Lehman issued similar obligations, which immediately rose 30 percent. Enron used them extensively and in the financial crisis of 2008 they played a major role in bringing down Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

Gambling
Despite the large number of bona fide companies Ivar controlled, he was an avid gambler.

He speculated with his personal funds and, especially, with the money of the corporations he controlled. Kreuger treated most of his companies as if they were exclusively his personal property. He frequently transferred funds from one corporation to another with little formality. A number of dummy corporations and holding companies (e.g. Garanta and Continental Investment Corporation) helped him to hide what he was doing. He also used other people as front men to conceal his actions, for example when he acquired almost half of the outstanding shares of Diamond Match Company so as not to raise anti-trust concerns in the USA. Towards the end, in 1932, when he frantically gambled with the securities of corporations he controlled in the vain attempt to reverse their falling prices, he played the markets himself and had friends help him in the effort to prop up share prices. Between the end of February and early March 1932 he needed to make over $10 million ($ in dollars) for payments, including Kreuger & Toll dividends.

His speculations were in foreign currencies, equities and derivatives and he also signed loan agreements with governments not knowing where the funds would be coming from. For example, the majority stake he had bought in a chemical company in Griesheim, Germany returned 15 times his investment after two years when the company became part of I. G. Farben. Part of his attraction for investors were the high dividends Kreuger & Toll paid. Therefore, he also had to make sure that he had money to pay those dividends.

It has never been established how much Kreuger lost in these frantic efforts in early 1932, but it has been estimated to be between $50 million and $100 million (c. $ and $ in dollars).

His first sovereign loan went to Poland, and when Kreuger signed the agreement he had no idea where the funds would come from.

He made a deal with Germany for a $125 million-dollar loan ($ in dollars) with the conditions that Germany sign the Young Plan and, of course, award him a match monopoly. (He already controlled 70% of German match production before the loan agreement.) When he signed the contract, again he had no idea where he would obtain the huge amount; however, he was lucky. Prime Minister Aristide Briand of France decided to repay a previous $75 million-dollar loan from Ivar before it was due. Incredibly, the French agreed to pay this sum by April 1930, just before Ivar's first payment to Germany was due. That payment gave Ivar enough cash to make his first installment. Either he had negotiated a sweetheart rescue deal with Prime Minister Briand, or he was incredibly lucky. He also made $5M (c. $ in dollars) due to the way the loan to France was structured. (It had been discounted and although France received only $70 million it was obligated to pay back $75 million.)

Companies controlled by Kreuger, c. 1930
It should be kept in mind that Kreuger controlled around 400 companies, therefore the following list is highly selective.
 * Kreuger & Toll AB. Holding company for most corporations Kreuger controlled. (Notable exceptions include Diamond Match Company, of which he owned almost half the outstanding shares, Ohio Match Company and I.G. Farben.)
 * Svenska Tändsticks Aktiebolaget-STAB
 * International Match Corporation, US. Holding company for countries outside Europe. Founded in 1923.
 * Diamond Match, US
 * Ohio Match, US
 * Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags AB
 * Svenska kullagerfabriken (Ball bearing company)
 * LKAB (Mining company)
 * Bolidens Gruv AB (Mining company, mainly gold.)
 * Hufvudstaden AB (Real estate company. Main interests in Stockholm City. Founded by Ivar Kreuger 1915.)
 * Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson
 * SCA (Cellulose industry.)
 * Högbroforsens Industri AB (Cellulose industry.)
 * Sirus A/G
 * Szikra Ungar. Zundholzfabriken
 * Alsing Trading Co, England
 * SF (Movie industry.)
 * Skandinaviska Kreditaktiebolaget
 * Stockholms Inteckningsgaranti AB
 * Trafik AB Grängesberg-Oxelösund (Railroad company.)
 * Deutsche Bank
 * Union de Banques à Paris
 * Banque de Suède et de Paris
 * Hollandsche Koopmansbank
 * Aktienbauverein Passage
 * AG für Hausbesitz
 * Bank Amerykański w Polsce, Poland

Kreuger group loans to foreign states, 1925–1930
The total loans by Kreuger to foreign states have been estimated to US$ 387m in 1930, corresponding to about USD$ 7.1 - 10.4 bn in 2013 currency.
 * Poland I, 1925: $6m and Poland II, 1930: $32.4m
 * Free State Danzig, 1930: $1m
 * Greece I, 1926: £1m and Greece II, 1931: £1m
 * Ecuador I, 1927: $2m and Ecuador II, 1929: $1m
 * France, 1927: $75m
 * Yugoslavia, 1928: $22m
 * Kingdom of Hungary, 1928: $36m
 * Germany, 1929: $125m
 * Latvia, 1928: $6m
 * Romania, 1930: $30m
 * Lithuania, 1930: $6m
 * Bolivia, 1930: 2 $m
 * Estonia, 1928: SEK 7.6m
 * Guatemala, 1930; $2.5m
 * Turkey, 1930: $10m
 * Part of the "Young-loan" to Germany, 1930: US$15m

Kreuger planned to issue a loan of $75m to Italy, known as the "Italian Bond" in 1930 but the deal was never completed.

End of the Kreuger empire and death
In March 1931, during a meeting at the German Ministry of Finance in Berlin, Swiss banker Felix Somary already warned of a bankruptcy of Kreuger's match company. By mid-1931, rumours spread that Kreuger & Toll and other companies in Kreuger's empire were financially unstable. In February 1932, Kreuger turned to Sveriges Riksbank for the second time in his life to support him in raising a large increase in his loans. At this time his total loans from Swedish banks were estimated at half of the Swedish reserve currency, which had started to have negative effects on the value of the Swedish currency in the international financial market. In order to grant him more loans, the government required that a complete statement of accounts of Kreuger's entire company group be presented, as the bank's (Sveriges Riksbank) own calculations showed that Kreuger & Toll finances were far too weak to give him more loans.

At that time, Ivar Kreuger was in the United States and was asked to return to Europe for a meeting with the chairman of the Riksbank, Ivar Rooth. He had left Sweden for the last time on 23 November 1931 and returned to Europe on the ship Ile de France, arriving in Paris on 11 March 1932. The meeting with Ivar Rooth was scheduled to take place on 13 or 14 March in Berlin. He met with Krister Littorin (vice president of Kreuger & Toll holding) and his own banker Oscar Rydbeck in Paris on 11 March to prepare for the Berlin meeting. But the day after, he was found dead in bed in his apartment at Avenue Victor Emanuel III. After questioning Kreuger's servants (his French maid, Mademoiselle Barrault, and the janitor who had had contact with Kreuger in the morning) the French police and a physician came to the conclusion that he had shot himself some time between 10:45 a.m. and 12:10 p.m. A 9-mm semi-automatic gun was found on the bed beside the body.

He left a sealed envelope in the room, addressed to Krister Littorin, which contained three other sealed envelopes – one addressed to his sister Britta; one to Sune Schéle; and one addressed to Littorin. In the letter to Littorin (for some reason written in English although Littorin was his closest Swedish colleague), he wrote:

"I have made such a mess of things that I believe this to be the most satisfactory solution for everybody concerned. Please, take care of these two letters also see that two letters which were sent a couple of days ago by Jordahl to me at 5, Avenue Victor Emanuel are returned to Jordahl. The letters were sent by Majestic – Goodbye now and thanks. I K.''"

Kreuger was interred in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.

Murder allegations
While his family believed Ivar Kreuger to have been murdered, it was only more than 30 years after his death that many previously classified Kreuger & Toll documents and Ivar Kreuger documents were made public. Based on these and his insight in his brother's business and life, Ivar's brother Torsten Kreuger wrote a book in 1963 (2nd edition) called Kreuger & Toll, describing how Kreuger & Toll had been taken over, and how then the other Kreuger companies were taken over too. In 1965, Torsten Kreuger published Sanningen om Ivar Kreuger (published in English as: "Ivar Kreuger: The Truth at Last") arguing that his brother Ivar had been murdered. Recently, more books have been written saying more documents have re-appeared or were finally released to public scrutiny, and supporting Torsten Kreuger's assertions that his brother was murdered: Därför mördades Ivar Kreuger ('The Reason for the Murder of Ivar Kreuger') (ISBN 91-7055-019-0) (1990), and Kreuger-Mordet: En utredning med nya fakta ('The Kreuger Murder: An Investigation with New Facts') (ISBN 91-630-9780-X) (2000).

The Kreuger Crash
Kreuger's death precipitated the Kreuger Crash which hit investors and companies worldwide, but particularly hard in the United States and Sweden. In 1933 and 1934, the U.S. Congress passed several security reform legislations that were meant to prevent a repeat of the Kreuger Crash. These bills were largely successful in their mission and the American financial industry did not witness frauds of the same magnitude until the Enron scandal and Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

A Foreign Affairs report from 1930 had judged that of the $630m worth of assets the company claimed to have, $200m came from the match business, $30m were in the bank, and the other $400m were merely categorized as "other investments". When the company finally went bankrupt at the end of March 1932, claimed assets of $250m turned out to be non-existent.

Prior to the crash, Kreuger had issued thousands of participating debentures. These were very popular, and a firm public belief in the rising Kreuger empire convinced contemporary Swedes to invest in these "Kreuger papers". Following the Kreuger crash, both the debentures and shares became worthless, and several thousand Swedes and small banks lost their savings and investments as a result. Large investors and suppliers apart from share holders, received a total of 43% back. The banks related to the Wallenberg family company group, Stenbeck company group, and Handelsbanken took over most of the companies in the Kreuger empire. Swedish Match recovered shortly after the crash as did most of the industrial companies within the Kreuger empire. Swedish Match received a large government guaranteed loan that was fully repaid after several years. IMCO in US however did not survive. The liquidation took nine years and was eventually finished in 1941.

Tentative conclusions
One biographer called him a genius and swindler. John Kenneth Galbraith wrote "Boiler-room operators, peddlers of stocks in the imaginary Canadian mines, mutual-fund managers whose genius and imagination are unconstrained by integrity, as well as less exotic larcenists, should read about Kreuger. He was the Leonardo of their craft." Ivar himself admitted to some extent that not all was above board when he said, "I've built my enterprise on the firmest ground that can be found—the foolishness of people." Andrew Beattie said: "Ivar Kreuger is still a bit of an enigma in history. ...At times it seemed that he was a solid, if ruthless, businessman, and at other times he appeared every inch a scam artist. Between those times, he either built a match monopoly that overreached or orchestrated one of the biggest pyramid schemes in history."

Many of his financial schemes did indeed have some parallels with a Ponzi scheme in as much as he needed to raise more and more funds in order to finance the loans he extended to governments in exchange for match monopolies. It is obvious that it is impossible to have earnings in single digits (as these sovereign loans typically paid) and continue paying dividends in double digits. Dividends were as high as 20%. However, while high dividends were definitely one of the attractions of Kreuger's companies, paying dividends to his investors did not come exclusively from new investors, which is the case in Ponzi schemes.

Balance sheets and Profit and Loss statements served one major purpose, if not the only one, for Ivar and that was they had to be helpful in his fund raising efforts. Often they were just pure fantasy to be revised at will to please investors. He also frequently treated the assets of corporations he controlled as if they were his own. However, things should be seen in the context of the time. IBM, for example, consolidated all its accounts in one named Plant, Property, Equipment, Machines, Patents and Goodwill. American Can doubled its reported net earnings in 1913 by claiming only $1 million of depreciation after having claimed $2.5 million the previous year. Many companies set up arbitrary reserves in good times to be used in bad years and few holding companies published consolidated financial statements.

Accounting standards and auditors' responsibility for the accuracy of financial statements evolved over time. Corporations resisted publishing audited financial statements. US Steel defied convention when it published its first audited financial statements in 1903. Indeed, accountants in the early 1900s "fiercely resisted efforts to impose strict accounting standards". It was not until the US Securities Acts' of 1933 and 1934—both heavily influenced by Kreuger's actions—that generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) began to be established. Only in the 1970s and 1980s were auditors forced to accept more responsibility for the veracity of financial statements, but loopholes continued to exist (and probably still do).

Dishonesty was part of Ivar's behavior almost from the beginning of his career. In the first loan for a match monopoly, Ivar's brother Torsten negotiated with Dr. Marjam Glowacki, a senior Polish finance ministry official. After the documents were signed Ivar decided that it might be useful in the future to replicate Dr. Glowacki's signature. He ordered a rubber stamp that would produce a facsimile should he need it in the future. He did not use it; however, from then on he had rubber stamps made of official signatures of almost all his match deals. "Mostly, Ivar had been skirting the edges of legal rules, to preserve his own flexibility." But the forgery of Italian bonds was outright fraud. A lithographer who had printed share certificates for Ivar made 42 Italian bills, which Ivar signed with the names of G. Boselli (an official in the Ministry of Finance) and A. Mosconi, (the Minister of Finance). It has never been explained why these forgeries were so crude. He even misspelled Boselli's name several times. Ivar kept them in his safe for almost two years. They would have been worth between 100 and 140 million dollars, if they had not been forged. (About 1.5 to 2.1 billion in today's money) When he was desperate for funds, Ivar tried to use them claiming that they were genuine.

Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that Ivar was nothing but a crook. Reality was more nuanced. For one thing disclosure rules in his days were much less stringent. Many corporations refused to reveal details for fear competitors would gain an advantage. Some firms did not even publish quarterly results. Ivar, too, was very secretive and not only with investors. When he was on the verge of hiring somebody he usually asked: "Can he keep a secret?" He was also very fond of quoting his motto for success: "Silence, more silence, and still more silence." Also one cannot fault him for the speculative fever in the 1920s. Without the hunger for ever larger profits many of Ivar's schemes would not have been possible. Incidentally this facilitated a transfer of capital from the USA to Europe where it was, often desperately, needed. He sold shares in the US worth 250 million dollars (equivalent to c. 3.75 billion today) and transferred almost all of it to his holding company in Liechtenstein, Continental Investment Corporation. Shareholders of International Match had given him authority to do this so there was nothing wrong with it. There was also a tax advantage because of the advantageous deal he had negotiated with Liechtenstein. But Ivar did it above all to have the flexibility to manipulate balance sheets and financial statements so they would look more attractive to investors as well as helping him—to some extent—pay the high dividends of Swedish Match and Kreuger & Toll. He got the nickname "Saviour of Europe" by lending about $400 million (equivalent to c. $6 billion today) to rebuild their shattered economies after World War I. He invented new financial instruments to help him raise funds and, of course, make him money. Indeed, many consider Ivar to be the father of modern financial schemes. Oscar Rydbeck, his Swedish banker, said Ivar was the third richest man in the world. He, however, claimed "money as such means nothing to me". Ivar was also a successful speculator for much of his life, earning money until shortly before the end. Trying to support the collapsing share prices of many of his companies (including ways which were—if not illegal—questionable, e.g. using straw men for share transactions. In the case of his acquisition of Diamond Match shares it was clearly illegal because of anti-trust laws.)

He controlled many legitimate, profitable businesses, some of which still exist to this day. (Examples include Swedish Match, Ericsson, Boliden AB, - Europe's largest gold mine -, Skandinaviska Banken, largest ball-bearing manufacturer in the world SKF, largest iron ore mine in the world LKAB, Swedish Film Industry SF Studios, one of largest forestry companies in the world SCA, Hufvudstaden, Stora Kopparberg AB, Deutsche Bank.) "Kreuger & Toll kept few accounting records despite the fact that it was a multibillion-dollar international conglomerate with over 400 subsidiaries."

The total of bank loans and proceeds of the sale of securities was about $650 million ($ in dollars). At the time of his death in 1932, assets were worth about $200 million, which was half of what Kreuger claimed in financial statements. Some of the shrinkage was due to depressed prices, but much went into paying dividends from capital over the years. Swedish Match's bankruptcy cost American investors over $250 million ($3.75 billion today).

Influence in popular culture
Both Graham Greene's novel England Made Me (1935), the later film with the same title based on it (1973), as well as Ayn Rand's play Night of January 16 feature a powerful Scandinavian tycoon recognizably modeled on Kreuger.

The film The Match King (1932) is a fictionalized account of Kreuger's life. His rise and his downfall are also mentioned by characters in the 1933 film Forgotten.

title: Ivar Kreuger


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Tommy Dreamer

Thomas James Laughlin (born February 13, 1971) is an American professional wrestler and promoter better known by the ring name Tommy Dreamer. He is signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he is a former one-time TNA Digital Media Champion, and was the owner and promoter of the House of Hardcore (HOH) promotion.

Dreamer is best known for his tenures with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in the 1990s and early 2000s and with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) (previously the World Wrestling Federation (WWF)), primarily from 2001 to 2010. During this time, he held numerous championships including, the ECW World Heavyweight Championship (which he held twice, being the only man to capture the title in both the original ECW and WWE's ECW brand). He has also held the ECW World Tag Team Championship and WWF/E Hardcore Championship. Dubbed the "heart and soul" of ECW, Dreamer regularly featured in prominent storylines for the promotion as well as holding many back office roles.

Dreamer has also appeared in notable promotions such as Impact Wrestling/TNA Wrestling, Ring of Honor (ROH), and AAA. After departing from WWE in 2010, Dreamer joined Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and was a part of an ECW-inspired stable known as EV 2.0. In 2012, Dreamer started his wrestling promotion called House of Hardcore, named in honor of ECW's former wrestling school of the same name. Since then, Dreamer has made sporadic appearances with WWE in 2012, 2015, and 2016, as well as wrestling on the independent circuit.

Early career (1989–1993)
Laughlin was trained in professional wrestling by Johnny Rodz. His first notable foray into the business came when he worked in International World Class Championship Wrestling (IWCCW) under the name T.D. Madison. While there, he and his storyline brother, G.Q., held the IWCCW Tag Team Championship three times in 1991. He changed his name to Tommy Dreamer, reportedly after taking his given first name, and adding "Dreamer" in tribute to Dusty Rhodes, in 1992 while working in the New England based Century Wrestling Alliance (CWA). While in the CWA, he became its first Heavyweight Champion by defeating "Mr. USA" Tony Atlas in a tournament final held in Wallingford, Connecticut, on November 5, 1992. He held the title for over four months before losing it to The Iron Sheik in Burlington, Vermont. On August 17, 1993, Tommy Dreamer wrestled a dark match at a WWF Superstars taping in White Plains, NY, losing to The Brooklyn Brawler.

Early appearances (1993–1994)
Dreamer joined Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in October 1993 at NWA Bloodfest. His first major gimmick in the company had him wrestling in matches in garish green suspenders and acting as something of a "pretty boy" – at least about the rest of the ECW roster. This gimmick got him soundly booed by crowds, even when he became the first person in wrestling history to kick out of the pin that follows the Superfly Splash of Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka at The Night the Line Was Crossed.

Feud with the Sandman (1994–1995)
After Michael Fay was arrested in Singapore and sentenced to a caning, ECW head booker Paul Heyman decided to capitalize on the publicity by holding a Singapore Cane match between Dreamer and the Sandman – with the loser having to take ten lashes. After losing the match, Dreamer took his lashes, then asked the Sandman for another, causing the crowd to feel sympathy for him as he took the extra and another. This was a launching point to an angle that ended up blurring the divide between faces and heels in wrestling, as well as start a new way of working the fans, especially the "smarks" – fans with some amount of inside information. In a later match, Dreamer kayfabe accidentally blinded the Sandman, first by knocking a lit cigarette into his eye, then hitting the other with a Singapore cane. Immediately after, Dreamer seemed to break kayfabe and started aiding the Sandman. He professed that he "didn't mean to do it" and that it was "an accident" as other wrestlers – face and heel – swarmed out to help. The feud continued with Sandman planning to announce his retirement at an ECW show, only to attack Dreamer and reveal he was never actually blind. The feud ended when Dreamer defeated the Sandman in a No DQ/No-Holds-Barred match.

Feud with Raven (1995–1997)
Though the blind Sandman angle was his first "major" feud in ECW, his later, years-long feud against Raven that started in January 1995 is arguably his most memorable. The two were portrayed as childhood friends who had been competing in different ways their entire lives. Raven's entrance into ECW had him accompanied by Beulah McGillicutty, an overweight girl from their kayfabe childhood who had a crush on Dreamer and was now a Penthouse Pet. Dreamer and Raven (and Raven's Nest) feuded for two years, with Dreamer never getting a win over Raven until Raven's last match in ECW, and a Loser Leaves Town match at Wrestlepalooza 1997. During the feud, Beulah had left Raven and was Tommy's valet.

Throughout 1996, during the feud with Raven, Dreamer was also involved in an additional feud with "Prime Time" Brian Lee, who was brought in as Raven's bodyguard. The two had several encounters that ended with Dreamer being chokeslammed through tables. During other fights, the pair brawled outdoors onto the street and into traffic. The feud culminated in a scaffold match at High Incident in October 1996, where Dreamer sent Lee off the scaffolding through several tables in the ring below. On February 24, 1997, Dreamer appeared on WWF Monday Night Raw defeating D-Von Dudley during ECW's invasion in WWF.

Various feuds (1997–2001)
After Raven went to World Championship Wrestling, Dreamer began a feud with the World Wrestling Federation's Jerry "The King" Lawler. The feud was largely symbolic, with Dreamer representing Extreme Championship Wrestling's "new school" style of wrestling as a concept and Lawler (with James E. Cornette) representing the World Wrestling Federation and United States Wrestling Association's more "old school" way of doing things.

In 1998, Dreamer had a short feud with Dudley Boyz (Buh Buh Ray and D-Von), during which they "broke" Beulah's neck. In August 1999 at the Last Show at the Madhouse, on their last night in the company, they cited this incident to get Dreamer to accept a challenge for the ECW Tag Team Championship they had won earlier in the night. He did accept, and got the title, but was paired with the unexpected partner Raven, who slid into the ring at the last second and made the pin. The team only lasted a short time before it dissolved, with Raven taking the title and choosing Mike Awesome as his new partner. He also, begrudgingly, became World Heavyweight Champion in 2000 by beating Tazz at CyberSlam, only to lose it to Justin Credible just 30 minutes later.

When speaking of his title reigns on The Rise and Fall of ECW documentary produced by WWE Home Video, Dreamer is quoted as saying:

Dreamer stayed with ECW until it folded in 2001, defeating C. W. Anderson in an "I Quit" match at Guilty as Charged – the final pay-per-view – and teaming with Danny Doring in a win over Julio Dinero and E. Z. Money in the final independent ECW show.

The Alliance (2001–2002)
After ECW closed its doors, Dreamer spent time in various independent leagues throughout the country, such as Jersey All Pro Wrestling and Combat Zone Wrestling before he signed with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). He was introduced to WWF audiences on the July 9, 2001, episode of Raw as a member of the WCW/ECW Alliance during the Invasion angle. When the angle ended in November, Dreamer was sent to the WWF's "farm territory" Heartland Wrestling Association.

Hardcore Champion and Heat mainstay (2002–2004)
He was brought back to the main roster of the now-renamed World Wrestling Entertainment in March and placed on the Raw brand. There, he turned face and was given a gimmick that saw him proclaim that he was "Just a Regular Guy", for which he was featured in vignettes and backstage segments showing him in normal situations that were then augmented by "disgusting" antics such as brushing his teeth and his dog's teeth with the same brush and eating food from the floor. However, this angle was short-lived. He soon reverted to his "Innovator of Violence" gimmick in the summer and amassed fourteen reigns as Hardcore Champion. During this time, he was the final person to hold it before it became unified with the Intercontinental Championship in a match with Rob Van Dam at Madison Square Garden. After losing the Hardcore Championship, Dreamer renewed his feud with Raven, defeating him in a Loser Leaves Raw match on June 24 to send him to Raw ' s sister show, Heat. Dreamer (with a variety of partners) would feud in the fall with Lance Storm and William Regal as he sought revenge for his jaw being broken. Dreamer would make his Royal Rumble debut in 2003, bringing weapons with him and breaking Bill DeMott's hand during the match.

As 2003 and 2004 went on, Dreamer was used less and less on WWE television, and they began allowing him to take independent bookings and work as color commentator for their developmental territories, Ohio Valley Wrestling, Deep South Wrestling and on occasion Heat. He was taken off the main roster in January 2004. When his performer's contract expired, he took a succession of office jobs inside World Wrestling Entertainment, including being the number two person in Talent Relations. During this time he continued to work in the independents and Ohio Valley Wrestling.

ECW Original (2005–2007)
In 2005, Dreamer was a major part of the ECW One Night Stand reunion show pay-per-view held under the World Wrestling Entertainment banner. He, along with a number of former ECW stars, took part in promotional hype for the event on episodes of Raw and, with The Sandman, he wrestled the Dudley Boyz in the main event. For the 2006 event, he was placed into an angle that had him and Terry Funk – who had been his "mentor" in the early days of the original ECW – at odds with then-heels, Mick Foley and Edge over the meanings of "extreme". The angle ended with a six-person-intergender-tag team match at the pay-per-view where Dreamer, Funk, and Beulah McGillicutty lost to Edge, Foley, and Lita.

When the ECW brand officially launched on the Sci Fi channel, Dreamer and the Sandman were put into one of the brands first feuds, an "old school versus new school" feud, against Test and Mike Knox. In November and December he engaged in a short feud with Daivari and The Great Khali, but Khali was sent to the Raw brand before it could come to a conclusion. Not long after Khali left ECW, The New Breed stable was established, consisting of wrestlers new to ECW: Elijah Burke, Marcus Cor Von, Matt Striker and Kevin Thorn. In response, a stable of ECW Originals was created, and the teams continued to clash in singles and tag matches, trading wins on the weekly ECW show throughout the spring of 2007, while both sides tried to get CM Punk to side with them. The Originals won a standard-rules four-on-four match at WrestleMania 23, which would be Dreamer's first and only match ever on the main card of a WrestleMania. The Originals lost an extreme-rules rematch on the following episode of ECW. The feud continued until a number of roster moves left both sides nearly barren, with it ending at One Night Stand when Dreamer, Sandman, and Punk beat Burke, Cor Von, and Striker in a Tables match.

ECW Championship pursuits (2007–2008)
In late 2007, Dreamer took part in the ECW brand's elimination chase to name a number one contender to the ECW Championship. During the series of matches, also involving Stevie Richards, Elijah Burke, and Kevin Thorn he added a bandana, worn on his head, to his ring gear. He received the original one from a young boy with a brain tumor, and from then on began wearing one as a sign of solidarity and strength to anyone going through that struggle. Dreamer emerged victorious in the final match against Burke, only to be surprised by ECW's general manager Armando Estrada forcing him to face Big Daddy V, who promptly beat him for the number one contenders.

In early 2008, Dreamer would have one of his career highlights. Despite not being featured on television leading up to the Royal Rumble, Dreamer would receive a loud ovation and chants from his hometown MSG crowd even with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker in the match. In February, Dreamer was paired with ECW brand enhancement talent Colin Delaney as a sort of mentor after Delaney was consistently and easily defeated on the weekly ECW television show. They challenged John Morrison and the Miz for the WWE Tag Team Championship after they defeated them in a non-title match, but they lost the title match in an Extreme rules match in March. At WrestleMania XXIV, he participated in a pre-show 24-man battle royal to earn an opportunity for the ECW Championship in the event, a match that was won by Kane. Dreamer qualified for the five-way Singapore cane match at One Night Stand to determine a number one contender for the championship; Big Show would win the match.

Following Mark Henry's ECW Championship win at Night of Champions, Dreamer was named his first challenger. At The Great American Bash, Dreamer was defeated by Henry for the championship after Colin Delaney turned on him and cost him the match. On the following ECW, Dreamer defeated Delaney and again on August 12, 2008, in an Extreme Rules grudge match which would be Delaney's final match in the WWE. Dreamer then turned his attention to the debuting Jack Swagger, who made disparaging remarks about Dreamer and ECW. They first faced off in an amateur wrestling match, which Dreamer was disqualified from for using his DDT on Swagger. Then Swagger defeated Dreamer in an Extreme Rules match, ending the feud.

ECW Champion and departure (2009–2010)
On the January 13, 2009 episode of ECW, Dreamer announced that if he failed to win the ECW Championship by June 6, when his WWE contract was to expire, he would no longer wrestle for ECW. The storyline saw Dreamer start a losing streak that ended when he defeated Paul Burchill on the February 24 episode of ECW. On the April 28 episode of ECW, Dreamer received a match for the ECW Championship against then-champion Christian, which went to a no-contest when Jack Swagger interfered. On the May 21 episode of Superstars Dreamer had another title match with Christian which once again went to a no contest when Swagger interfered, believing he ruined Dreamer's last title chance. Dreamer was granted a one-day extension on his contract, allowing him one last chance at the ECW Championship, challenging the champion Christian and Jack Swagger in a triple threat match at Extreme Rules, where Dreamer pinned Jack Swagger in a hardcore triple threat match, capturing his second ECW Championship almost a decade after he claimed the title in the original ECW, being the only man to hold the belt in the original ECW and in the ECW brand of WWE.

After successfully defending the title against Christian on the June 15 episode of Raw, Dreamer successfully defended the title in a Championship Scramble match at The Bash, before eventually losing the title back to Christian at Night of Champions. On the July 28 episode of ECW, Dreamer announced he would exercise his rematch clause against Christian the following week. The two faced off in an Extreme Rules match, in which Christian retained the championship.

After his championship pursuit had ceased, Dreamer began teaming up with Christian, Yoshi Tatsu and Goldust on various occasions to take on William Regal and his allies Vladimir Kozlov and Ezekiel Jackson, exchanging victories and losses. On the December 29 episode of ECW, Dreamer wrestled Zack Ryder and lost. If Dreamer was to lose the match then he would be (kayfabe) forced to retire from in-ring competition. After the match, Dreamer made a farewell speech in which he thanked the fans before exiting the ring with his two daughters. A few days later on January 4, 2010, Dreamer was officially released by WWE, ending an eight-year tenure with the company.

EV 2.0 (2010–2011)
On June 13, 2010, at Slammiversary VIII Dreamer made his debut for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), appearing in the crowd and thus distracting Brother Ray and costing him his match against Jesse Neal. On the June 24 episode of Impact! Dreamer appeared in the crowd of the Impact! Zone, beside fellow ECW alumni Raven and Stevie Richards. The following week the three were joined by Rhino. On the July 15 episode of Impact!, Dreamer, Raven, Richards, Rhino, Brother Devon, Pat Kenney and Al Snow, led by Mick Foley, aligned themselves with the TNA World Heavyweight Champion Rob Van Dam by attacking Abyss and the rest of the TNA locker room. The following week, TNA president Dixie Carter agreed to give the ECW alumni their own reunion pay–per–view event, Hardcore Justice: The Last Stand, as a celebration of hardcore wrestling and a final farewell to the company, while also placing Dreamer in charge of the show. Dreamer made his TNA in–ring debut on the July 29 episode of Impact!, losing to Abyss in a No Disqualification match. After the match Raven reignited his old feud with Dreamer by turning on him, laying him out with a DDT on a chair, and licking his face. The following week Raven explained his turn by saying that he had not forgotten how Dreamer had "stolen" his girlfriend Beulah McGillicutty back in 1996; also on that show Dreamer teamed with Van Dam to beat Abyss and Raven. On August 8 at Hardcore Justice, Dreamer was defeated by Raven in a "Final Showdown" (Final Singles match) match refereed by Mick Foley and featuring appearances by Beulah McGillicutty, "Lupus", The Blue Meanie and Hollywood Nova.

On the following episode of Impact!, the ECW alumni, known collectively as Extreme, Version 2.0 (EV 2.0), were assaulted by A.J. Styles, Kazarian, Robert Roode, James Storm, Douglas Williams and Matt Morgan of Ric Flair's Fourtune stable, who thought they did not deserve to be in TNA. The following week TNA president Dixie Carter gave each member of EV 2.0 TNA contracts in order for them to settle their score with Fourtune. At No Surrender Dreamer lost an "I Quit" match to A.J. Styles due to Styles putting a fork into his eye. Dreamer admitted EV 2.0's defeat on the following episode of Impact! and tried to reach a truce with Fourtune, but was beaten down. The following week he returned with Raven, Stevie Richards, Sabu and Rhino and announced that Dixie Carter had given the five of them a Lethal Lockdown match against Fourtune at Bound for Glory. At Bound for Glory Dreamer, Raven, Rhino, Richards and Sabu defeated Fourtune members Styles, Kazarian, Morgan, Roode and Storm in a Lethal Lockdown match, when Dreamer pinned Styles. After weeks of dissension between Rob Van Dam and the rest of EV 2.0, caused by Van Dam's belief that there was a traitor within the group, Dreamer challenged him to a match. At Turning Point Van Dam defeated Dreamer and afterwards made peace with him. On the following episode of Impact!, Rhino turned heel by attacking Van Dam and Dreamer, revealing himself as the traitor Van Dam had been looking for. The following week Dreamer defeated Rhino in a Street Fight, but he suffered an injured wrist during the match. After spending some time off television, Dreamer returned on the February 24 episode of Impact!, becoming entangled in the feud between former tag team partners Bully Ray and Brother Devon. On March 13 at Victory Road, Dreamer defeated Ray in a Falls Count Anywhere match, following interference from Devon.

Immortal (2011)
On the May 5 episode of Impact!, Dreamer was forced to attack A.J. Styles and to join Immortal in order to save his job in TNA. Dreamer was later confronted on his choice by A.J. Styles, which led to a match at Sacrifice, where Dreamer was victorious following interference from Bully Ray. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Dreamer officially turned heel, citing the first time he attacked Styles was due to being forced by Ray, before willingly attacking Styles because he wanted to and proceeding to berate the crowd by calling them "pieces of crap" for not sympathizing with his job situation. This is also the first time that Dreamer has wrestled as a heel since being a member of the Alliance during his WWF/E career. On the May 26 episode of Impact Wrestling, Styles and Christopher Daniels defeated Dreamer and Ray in a no disqualification street fight. On June 6 Dreamer confirmed that TNA's house show in Memphis, Tennessee on June 11 would be his final appearance for the promotion. In his final TNA match, Dreamer teamed with Bully Ray in a losing effort against A.J. Styles and Brother Devon. After the match Bully berates Dreamer, causing Dreamer to turn on him and make up with Styles and Devon.

Independent circuit (2010–present)
Dreamer appeared at the inaugural event of Evolve on January 17, 2010, in a non-wrestling role, getting involved in a match which led to him brawling with Jimmy Jacobs. Later that month, on January 23, Dreamer debuted for Dragon Gate USA, saving Jacobs and Lacey from a beating at the hands of Jon Moxley. On March 27, Dreamer made his pay-per-view debut for Dragon Gate USA in Phoenix, Arizona, where he lost a hardcore match to Moxley, which was taped for the Mercury Rising pay-per-view.

On April 2, Universal Championship Wrestling added Dreamer to their roster. He defeated fellow former ECW Champion Shane Douglas to become the promotion's Universal Heavyweight Champion on February 20.

On April 25, Dreamer made his debut for Philadelphia-based Chikara, challenging Eddie Kingston to a match at the Anniversary show on May 23. Kingston won the match via disqualification when Ares and Claudio Castagnoli of the Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (BDK) attacked him. Dreamer assisted Kingston in taking care of BDK and then made a challenge for a tag team match on July 25 at The Arena in Philadelphia. Earlier that same day, Kingston inducted Dreamer into the Hardcore Hall of Fame. BDK ended up defeating Dreamer and Kingston, when Castagnoli pinned Dreamer.

Dreamer returned to Chikara on November 13, 2011, at the promotion's first ever internet pay-per-view, High Noon, accompanying Eddie Kingston to his Chikara Grand Championship match. On July 28, 2012, Dreamer wrestled for Family Wrestling Entertainment in which he defeated Brian Kendrick, Carlito and champion Jay Lethal in a four-way Elimination match to become the new FWE Heavyweight Champion. On September 14, 2012, Dreamer returned to Chikara, when he, Jerry Lynn and Too Cold Scorpio entered the 2012 King of Trios as "The Extreme Trio", defeating Team WWF (1–2–3 Kid, Aldo Montoya and Tatanka) in their first round match. The following day, The Extreme Trio was eliminated from the tournament by Team ROH (Mike Bennett, Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson). On October 4, 2012, he retained the FWE Heavyweight Championship against Rhino in the first PPV of the company.

On November 25, 2012, Dreamer returned to Japan to take part in an independent event produced by The Big Guns. During the event, Dreamer and Makoto defeated Akira and Syuri in a mixed tag team hardcore match. The following day, Dreamer made his debut for Wrestling New Classic (WNC), the follow-up promotion to Smash, entering the WNC Championship tournament and defeating Yusuke Kodama in his first round match. Two days later, Dreamer was defeated in his semi-final match by Akira.

On February 16, 2013, Dreamer tried to capture the FWE Heavyweight Championship in a TLC match against Carlito and Matt Hardy, but he was defeated. On June 21, 2013, he was defeated by Rob Van Dam at FWE Welcome to the Rumble in an Extreme Rules match. However, the same night, he won the FWE Rumble.

Tommy Dreamer worked with Ring of Honor during 2017 coming to the aid of Bully Ray who had been attacked by former allies The Briscoe Brothers. Tommy Dreamer and Bully Ray teamed against The Briscoe Brothers in a losing effort at ROH Final Battle 2017. He made his debut in Lucha Underground in Aztec Warfare IV, Episode 1 of Lucha Underground's fourth season on June 13, 2018, at number 7, and was pinned and eliminated by Pentagón Dark. November 20,2023 Was Beaten By Aaron Reyes At SWF

House of Hardcore (2012–present)
In 2012, Dreamer opened his own wrestling promotion and wrestling school, House of Hardcore, which is the name of the former ECW wrestling school. The promotion made its debut on October 6, 2012, at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, New York. In the main event of the first show, Dreamer lost the FWE Heavyweight Championship to Carlito in a three-way match, which also included Mike Knox. On June 22, 2013, Dreamer defeated Lance Storm in the main event at House of Hardcore 2. On November 9, 2013, Dreamer participated in the main event of House of Hardcore 3. Dreamer and Terry Funk defeated Sean Waltman and Lance Storm. The match was promoted as the last time of Funk and Dreamer as a tag team. After the match, Dreamer was assaulted by TNA wrestlers Team 3D, Bully Ray (formerly Buh Buh Ray Dudley) and Devon (formerly D-Von). Ray challenged Dreamer to a match at TNA One Night Only – Old School. On June 6, 2014, Dreamer was scheduled to face Team 3D along with Abyss. However, Bully Ray was pulled out of the event, so the main event was Devon and Dreamer vs Rhino and Abyss. Dreamer and Devon won the match. At House of Hardcore VII, Dreamer wrestled against Bobby Roode for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, but he was defeated. Dreamer now owns his House of Hardcore promotion. He has made various touring tours across the United States and over the years at his owner's level he is still fighting and defeating his opponents in hardcore matches. On December 2, 2017, House of Hardcore 36 Abyss defeated Dreamer. On January 27, 2018, House of Hardcore 37 Team of Tommy Dreamer and Billy Gunn beat the team of Joey Mercury and Nick Aldis. On March 23, 2018, in the 38 episode of House of Hardcore Tommy Dreamer beat Joey Mercury in one very brutal street fight match; the day after this match, Dreamer was a contender for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against Nick Aldis, but he failed to win the title.

Return to TNA (2013–2015)
On January 17, 2013, Dreamer made an appearance Impact Wrestling as one of Bully Ray's groomsmen during his wedding to Brooke Hogan. He was assaulted by Aces & Eights after they crashed the ceremony. Dreamer returned to TNA in late 2013. He faced Ethan Carter III at two house shows and on December 29, 2013, at TNA Hardcore Justice 3, Dreamer was defeated by Ethan Carter III in a Tables match. The next day, Dreamer was defeated by Bully Ray at TNA #OldSchool in a Falls Count Anywhere match that happened due to Bully Ray attacking Dreamer and Terry Funk at House of Hardcore III.

At Lockdown in January 2014, Dreamer returned to the company as a road agent. on the July 17 episode of Impact, Dreamer and Bully Ray faced Ethan Carter III and Rhyno in a losing effort. on the July 24 episode of Impact, Dreamer and Team 3D faced Ethan Carter III, Rhino, and Rockstar Spud in a 6-man New York City street fight in a losing effort after a run in by Snitsky and Rycklon. On the August 7 taping of Impact Wrestling, Dreamer, Team 3D, and Al Snow defeated Team Dixie (Ethan Carter III, Rhyno, Rycklon Stephens, and Snitsky) in a hardcore tag team war. Shortly afterward, Bully Ray powerbombed Dixie Carter through a table.

On the August 27 episode of Impact Wrestling, Dreamer was defeated by TNA World Heavyweight Champion Lashley in a non-title New York City street fight. The day before Bound For Glory Dreamer would induct Team 3D into the TNA Hall of Fame and at Bound for Glory, Dreamer teamed up with Abyss to face Team 3D in a losing effort. On the October 29 episode of Impact Wrestling, Dreamer helped Devon brawl with Bram and Magnus. On the November 5 episode of Impact, Dreamer and Devon defeated Bram and Magnus in a hardcore tag team match. On the November 19, 2014, episode of Impact, Dreamer faced Bram in a hardcore match but lost. on the February 20 episode of Impact, Dreamer faced Eric Young in a Hardcore match but lost the match. At Bound for Glory, Dreamer competed in the 12-man Bound for Gold Gauntlet match which was won by Tyrus. Bound for Glory turned out to be Dreamer's final appearance with the company. Dreamer was reportedly fired due to an argument with fellow producers after cancelling the India Tour.

Second return to WWE (2012; 2015–2016)
On the December 17, 2012 episode of Raw, Dreamer made a one-off appearance as the surprise tag team partner of The Miz and Alberto Del Rio, defeating 3MB (Heath Slater, Drew McIntyre and Jinder Mahal) in a six-man tag team match. Later on in the night, Dreamer was attacked backstage by The Shield.

On the November 30, 2015 episode of Raw, Dreamer returned, teaming with The Dudley Boyz in a six-man tag match against The Wyatt Family which ended in a no contest. The following week on Raw, Dreamer and The Dudley Boyz would be joined by Rhyno, forming Team Extreme, competing in a 16-man elimination Fatal 4-Way tag team match, where Dreamer would pin Erick Rowan to eliminate The Wyatt Family before Team Extreme would be eliminated by The League of Nations. Later, Dreamer lost to Braun Strowman. At TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs, Team Extreme was defeated by The Wyatt Family in an 8-man elimination tag team tables match. The following night on Raw, Team Extreme would challenge The Wyatt Family to a rematch, this time in an 8-man Extreme Rules match, in a losing effort. Dreamer continued to make live event appearances for the WWE in 2016 while becoming a regular guest on the WWE Network exclusive series, The Edge & Christian Show That Totally Reeks of Awesomeness, alongside the show's hosts, Edge and Christian. In November 2016, Dreamer began filming an ECW show for the WWE Network alongside Paul Heyman, Tazz and Bubba Ray Dudley.

Second return to Impact/TNA (2018–present)
Dreamer returned to Impact Wrestling on the April 12 episode of Impact when he helped Eddie Edwards and Moose from an attack from Ohio Versus Everything and challenged them to a House of Hardcore Match at Redemption, in which he lost. On the June 14, 2018, episode of Impact, Edwards brutally hit Dreamer with a kendo stick because of their loss at Redemption. Edwards and Dreamer would later start an intense feud which ended when Edwards beat Dreamer in a street fight in a match at Slammiversary. At Bound for Glory, Dreamer saved Edwards from an attack from Killer Kross and Moose. This led to a tag team match in which the team was victorious.

On January 23, 2019, it was revealed that Dreamer would now be working as a member of the creative team for Impact Wrestling. He had already been serving as a producer for some time. At Slammiversary, Dreamer unsuccessful challenged Moose in an Old School Rules match for the unsanctioned TNA World Heavyweight Championship. At Victory Road, he was defeated by Brian Myers. On the October 27 episode of Impact, Swoggle helped Dreamer in defeating Brian Myers in a hardcore match by hitting Myers with a low blow. At No Surrender on February 13, 2021, his 50th birthday, Dreamer unsuccessfully challenged Rich Swann for the Impact World Championship.

On September 17, 2021, Impact officials announced that Dreamer had been suspended indefinitely due to the comments he made on an episode of Dark Side of the Ring, which saw Dreamer defend Ric Flair concerning the allegation that Flair made multiple unwanted sexual advances towards a flight attendant on a flight from England to the U.S. in 2002. He left Impact in November 2021. In December, Dreamer returned to Impact both as a producer and semi-active wrestler.

At Victory Road on September 8, 2023, he won the Impact Digital Media Championship by defeating Kenny King in a Title vs. Career match. He would hold the title until January 13, 2024, at Hard To Kill, when he lost the title to Crazzy Steve.

Major League Wrestling (2018–2019)
Dreamer joined Major League Wrestling in 2018 as a wrestler and in a backstage role as an agent for matches. His first match for the promotion would be at MLW War Games in September 2018. Dreamer would be on the winning team in the War Games match as himself, John Hennigan, Shane Strickland, Barrington Hughes and Kotto Brazil defeated Abyss, Jimmy Havoc, Sami Callihan and his team The Death Machines. In his match at the next set of television tapings, he would be defeated by Brody King. He then entered a feud with Brian Pillman Jr. over his lack of respect for veterans such as Kevin Sullivan and himself. He beat Pillman in their first encounter, but three weeks later, Pillman would pin Dreamer in a tag team match on the December 21, 2018 episode of MLW Fusion. On January 11, 2019, episode of Fusion, Pillman defeated Dreamer in a Singapore Cane match.

All Elite Wrestling (2019)
Dreamer participated in All Elite Wrestling (AEW)'s Casino Battle Royale at their inaugural pay-per-view event Double or Nothing on May 25, 2019. He failed to win as he was eliminated by Jimmy Havoc. At their following PPV All Out, Dreamer worked backstage as a producer during the event.

Other media
Dreamer appeared along with fellow ECW wrestler New Jack in the "Mel Schwartz, Bounty Hunter" episode of the TV series Early Edition as a biker. In October 2011, Dreamer started his own YouTube series, titled The Tommy Dreamer TV. The show is produced by Brooke Platzner with graphics and music by Jason Platzner. He is a playable character in various video games including ECW Anarchy Rulz, ECW Hardcore Revolution, WWE Raw 2, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010, WWE Legends of WrestleMania, TNA Wrestling Impact!, and RetroMania Wrestling.

Dreamer appeared on an episode of the TruTV television show Impractical Jokers in 2014, as one of the show's main members, Brian "Q" Quinn, had to wrestle him as part of his punishment for losing the most contests on that episode. He had another cameo on the show in 2017, in a challenge where he had to take Q's pants off, before a stranger untangles his earphones.

In 2013, he portrayed Officer Carpoza in the horror film Army of the Damned. Dreamer also has a cameo, alongside fellow wrestlers Diamond Dallas Page, Jake Roberts and Roddy Piper, in the comedy film The Bet.

In 2017, he starred as Detective Marx in the drama-thriller 'The Abduction of Jennifer Grayson', where he was credited as "Tom Dreamer".

Dreamer is also a co-host for the Sirius XM program Busted Open, a wrestling-based radio show. Other hosts include Dave LaGreca, Bubba/Bully Ray Dudley, Mark Henry, and Ryan McKinnell. Busted Open is found on Sirius XM Channel "Fight Nation" Monday through Saturday.

Personal life
Dreamer is of Irish and Italian descent.

On October 12, 2002, at the Lake Isle Country Club in Eastchester, New York, Laughlin married Trisa Hayes, known as ECW wrestler/manager Beulah McGillicutty. The two have twin daughters, Brianna Laughlin and Kimberly Laughlin.

On a November 2011 Art of Wrestling podcast, Dreamer told host Colt Cabana his family is "connected" to the New York mafia. After one of his first matches in Brooklyn, which was attended by various of his local relatives, he was attacked from behind and beaten down by Bill DeMott, wrestling at the time under the name Sweet William. Unaware of wrestling's scripted nature, several of his relatives at ringside got angry; aside from his grandfather jumping over the railing and trying to fight off security guards, his aunt told DeMott as he passed that she would "put a hit" on him. The misunderstanding was peacefully resolved.

Championships and accomplishments

 * Border City Wrestling
 * BCW Can-Am Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * BCW Can-Am Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Nova
 * Most Shocking Moment of the Decade Award (2010)
 * Busted Knuckle Pro Wrestling
 * BKPW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Markus Ryan
 * Chinlock Wrestling
 * Chinlock Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Century Wrestling Alliance
 * CWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * CWA Heavyweight Title Tournament (1992)
 * Clash Wrestling
 * Clash Championship (1 time)
 * Cutting Edge Wrestling
 * CEW North Atlantic Championship (1 time)
 * DDT Pro-Wrestling
 * Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship (2 times)
 * Eastern/Extreme Championship Wrestling
 * ECW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * ECW World Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with Johnny Gunn (1), Raven (1) and Masato Tanaka (1)
 * Elite Pro Wrestling Alliance
 * EPWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Family Wrestling Entertainment
 * FWE Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * FWE Rumble (2013)
 * Gimmick Tree Entertainment
 * Bruiser Brody Cup (2019)
 * Greektown Pro Wrestling
 * Greektown Cup Championship (1 time)
 * Hardcore Hall of Fame
 * Class of 2010
 * Impact Wrestling / Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
 * Impact/TNA Digital Media Championship (1 time)
 * Impact Championship Wrestling
 * ICW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * International World Class Championship Wrestling
 * IWCCW Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with G.Q. Madison
 * International Wrestling Association
 * IWA Hardcore Championship (1 time)
 * International Wrestling Cartel
 * IWC World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * IWC Tag Team Championship (1 time, current) - with Channing Decker
 * KYDA Pro Wrestling
 * KYDA Pro Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Ohio Valley Wrestling
 * OVW Anarchy Championship (1 time)
 * Pro Wrestling Fighters
 * PWF North-European Championship (1 time)
 * Pro Wrestling Illustrated
 * Ranked No. 28 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2000
 * Ranked No. 184 of the top 500 wrestlers in the "PWI Years" in 2003
 * Pure Wrestling Association
 * Carrot Cup (2015) – with Rhino
 * RetroMania Wrestling
 * RetroMania Wrestling Championship (1 time, current)
 * Squared Circle Wrestling
 * 2CW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Universal Championship Wrestling
 * UCW Universal Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
 * Warriors of Wrestling
 * WOW No Limits Championship (1 time)
 * World Wrestling Federation / World Wrestling Entertainment
 * ECW Championship (1 time)
 * WWF/E Hardcore Championship (14 times)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Tommy Dreamer


text:
Nilradical of a ring

In algebra, the nilradical of a commutative ring is the ideal consisting of the nilpotent elements:
 * $$\mathfrak{N}_R = \lbrace f \in R \mid f^m=0 \text{ for some } m\in\mathbb{Z}_{>0}\rbrace.$$

It is thus the radical of the zero ideal. If the nilradical is the zero ideal, the ring is called a reduced ring. The nilradical of a commutative ring is the intersection of all prime ideals.

In the non-commutative ring case the same definition does not always work. This has resulted in several radicals generalizing the commutative case in distinct ways; see the article Radical of a ring for more on this.

The nilradical of a Lie algebra is similarly defined for Lie algebras.

Commutative rings
The nilradical of a commutative ring is the set of all nilpotent elements in the ring, or equivalently the radical of the zero ideal. This is an ideal because the sum of any two nilpotent elements is nilpotent (by the binomial formula), and the product of any element with a nilpotent element is nilpotent (by commutativity). It can also be characterized as the intersection of all the prime ideals of the ring (in fact, it is the intersection of all minimal prime ideals).

$$

$$

A ring is called reduced if it has no nonzero nilpotent. Thus, a ring is reduced if and only if its nilradical is zero. If R is an arbitrary commutative ring, then the quotient of it by the nilradical is a reduced ring and is denoted by $$R_{\text{red}}$$.

Since every maximal ideal is a prime ideal, the Jacobson radical — which is the intersection of maximal ideals — must contain the nilradical. A ring R is called a Jacobson ring if the nilradical and Jacobson radical of R/P coincide for all prime ideals P of R. An Artinian ring is Jacobson, and its nilradical is the maximal nilpotent ideal of the ring. In general, if the nilradical is finitely generated (e.g., the ring is Noetherian), then it is nilpotent.

Noncommutative rings
For noncommutative rings, there are several analogues of the nilradical. The lower nilradical (or Baer–McCoy radical, or prime radical) is the analogue of the radical of the zero ideal and is defined as the intersection of the prime ideals of the ring. The analogue of the set of all nilpotent elements is the upper nilradical and is defined as the ideal generated by all nil ideals of the ring, which is itself a nil ideal. The set of all nilpotent elements itself need not be an ideal (or even a subgroup), so the upper nilradical can be much smaller than this set. The Levitzki radical is in between and is defined as the largest locally nilpotent ideal. As in the commutative case, when the ring is Artinian, the Levitzki radical is nilpotent and so is the unique largest nilpotent ideal. Indeed, if the ring is merely Noetherian, then the lower, upper, and Levitzki radical are nilpotent and coincide, allowing the nilradical of any Noetherian ring to be defined as the unique largest (left, right, or two-sided) nilpotent ideal of the ring.

title: Nilradical of a ring


text:
David McFadden (poet)

David William McFadden (October 11, 1940 – June 6, 2018) was a Canadian poet, fiction writer, and travel writer.

Biography
McFadden was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and began writing poetry while still in high school, publishing in literary magazines, corresponding with beat writer Jack Kerouac, and becoming a proofreader for the Hamilton Spectator newspaper. As he gained success as a poet he quit the newspaper devoting himself full-time to literature in 1976.

McFadden served on the editorial board of Coach House Press, and as a contributing editor for SwiftCurrent and Canadian Art Magazine. He was a monthly columnist for Quill and Quire and Hamilton This Month. He taught at David Thompson University Centre for three years and was a member of the production team of the literary journal Brick.

McFadden's poetry critiques the commercialism and shallowness of modern society. His work, with its overt humour, reflections on contemporary urban life, and interest in the mistakes of the imagination is influenced by Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery and the New York School of the 1950s, as well as the Beat writers of the 1960s such as Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. His work focuses on Canadian subjects, settings and personalities. His book of 100 Baudelaire-inspired prose poems, Gypsy Guitar, was called "everyone's favourite book of poems" by George Bowering.

McFadden is a founding member of GOSH (Gentlemen of Sensible Height), and a former member of International PEN, the Writer's Union of Canada, the League of Canadian Poets, and the Last Minute Club.

In 2012, McFadden was diagnosed with logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia, a type of Alzheimer's disease that affects a person's memory of words, and shortly thereafter he became one of the first participants in a study of the effects of aerobic exercise on people already affected by dementia.

Poetry

 * The Poem Poem – 1967
 * Letters from the Earth to the Earth – 1968
 * Poems Worth Knowing – 1971
 * Intense Pleasure – 1972
 * The Ova Yogas – 1972
 * The Poet's Progress – 1977
 * The Saladmaker – 1977
 * I Don't Know – 1978
 * A Knight in Dried Plums – 1978
 * On the Road Again – 1978
 * A New Romance – 1979
 * My Body Was Eaten By Dogs – 1981
 * Country of the Open Heart – 1982
 * Three Stories and Ten Poems – 1982
 * A Pair of Baby Lambs – 1983
 * The Art of Darkness – 1984 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
 * Gypsy Guitar – 1987 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
 * Anonymity Suite – 1992
 * There'll Be Another – 1995
 * Five Star Planet – 2002
 * Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden – 2007 (shortlisted for the 2008 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize)
 * Be Calm, Honey – 2008 (shortlisted for the 2009 Governor General's Award in Poetry)
 * Why Are You So Long & Sweet? Collected Long Poems of David W. McFadden – 2009
 * What's the Score? – 2012 (winner of the 2013 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize)

Fiction

 * The Great Canadian Sonnet – 1974
 * Animal Spirits – 1983
 * Canadian Sunset – 1986

Travel

 * A Trip Around Lake Huron – 1980
 * A Trip Around Lake Erie – 1980
 * A Trip Around Lake Ontario – 1988
 * An Innocent in Ireland – 1995
 * Great Lakes Suite – 1997
 * An Innocent in Scotland – 1999
 * An Innocent in Newfoundland – 2003
 * An Innocent in Cuba – 2003

title: David McFadden (poet)


text:
ITromsø

iTromsø (formerly Bladet Tromsø) is a daily (save for Sunday) newspaper published in Tromsø, Norway.

History and profile
Bladet Tromsø was first published on 24 January 1898 with Erling Gjemsø as the first editor-in-chief. He was followed by Erling Steinbø in the post.

The newspaper initially supported the Liberal Party. Following the party split in 1972, it aligned with the new Liberal People's Party for a short time before declaring its support of the Conservative Party.

The newspaper was owned by the company which owns Verdens Gang from 1986 to 1992. It is now published by Mediehuset iTromsø A/S, a subsidiary of Polaris Media, which was earlier owned by the Schibsted Group. The editor-in-chief is Stig Jakobsen.

In December 2009, the newspaper changed its name to iTromsø. , it had a circulation of 9,500 copies.

Editor in chief

 * 1898 – 1898	Erling Gjemsø
 * 1898 – 1912	Erling Steinbø
 * 1912 – 1916	Anders Hamre
 * 1916 – 1916	Sverre Melvær
 * 1916 – 1917	Karl Sjurseth
 * 1917 – 1917	Andreas Aas
 * 1917 – 1917	Anders Hamre
 * 1917 – 1961	Oscar Larsen
 * 1961 – 1972	Kjell Larsen
 * 1961 – 1982	Sverre Larsen
 * 1972 – 1974	Wiggo Jentoft
 * 1974 – 1980	Erlend Rian
 * 1980 – 1985	Einar Sørensen
 * 1985 – 1985	Kjell Larsen
 * 1985 – 1986	Arnulf Hartviksen
 * 1986 – 1990	Pål Stensaas
 * 1990 – 1993	Per Eliassen
 * 1994 – 2007	Yngve Nilssen
 * 2007 -	2009 Jonny Hansen
 * 2009 – 2014	 Jørn Chr. Skoglund
 * 2014 – 2015 Jonny Hansen
 * 2015 – Stig Jakobsen

Lindberg case
Bladet Tromsø became internationally known in 1988 when they published an official report on seal hunting written by Odd F. Lindberg. The report received international attention and led to a discussion about the Norwegian seal hunt and freedom of speech. The newspaper was sued by the seal hunters and sentenced after two court rounds to pay compensation. In May 1999, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg reversed the ruling of the Norwegian court, marking a change in the standards of publication.

title: ITromsø


text:
User:Agent Jones

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title: User:Agent Jones