There is a very recent example, with recent evidence. The 2008+ foreclosure crisis resulted in banks owning a lot of property. Was the goal of predatory lending not only to fleece customers and make money trading scam securities but to scoop up property when the music stopped?

— Adina Levin (@alevin) April 7, 2019

I’m not much into conspiracy theories, but this is something I’ve wondered about often. I do think more than a few lenders and corporations had this as an explicit goal, because it was an obvious outcome. (The “who could have known?” narrative is extremely, extremely false. Many people knew and were in a position to do something with this knowledge).

Also I believe this was the case because throughout history, the objective of many if not most lenders has been to saddle populations with usurious and unpayable debts with the explicit goal being to seize the property once the recipients of credit are inevitably unable to pay.

There is little new under the sun. Why would this be different in 2008 or now?