Ish the Federal reserve department that runs it: FED, the housing bubble burst/crash of 2008 was actually successfully predicted by chairman Alan Greenspan back in 1994! The housing bubble was made worse back in early 2000s when banking cartel AIG started trading financial derivatives (loans mortgagees and the compound interest on them) like or as stock options, then worse again when they started double trading and mass trading them. (Trading the same option to more than one person to earn 2 or more lines of profit off of ONE product). Now if i had to guess; I would say they did this due to the fact that the USA trades GOLD and the now these sheets of paper which are basically packages of assets written up on an ownership deed that says holder owns X amount of Y assets... Any way the FED and government handle international DEBT the same way AIG handled and double/mass traded the derivatives which caused the 2008 depression. My guess is they did it to see what would happen when the USA international Debt trade bursts and the potential financial end of the world that may ensue. But thats just my speculation on it any way. Basically the job of the FED or federal reserve is just to manage how much money exists and how much more to print; at its simplest and core function. The problem with it is; it is a PRIVATELY OWNED banking cartel. So yea its pretty F'D up. But yea pretty much in the USA we basically have slavery enforced by DEBT and a rigid system that by DEFAULT now makes it so the have nots are as close to permanently made to be have nots as they can be with out causing revolution on any scale.