I really don’t think that you need a conspiracy theory on this one. The crisis of confidence was long in the coming. At some point there was bound to have been a run on the US and UK banking systems as people tried to stuff money into their institutional mattresses.

The American Right, of course, has argued long and loud that the US economy should have been allowed to collapse and that it should never have been bailed out in a ‘kick-the-profligates’ deserving ass’ exercise which would have turned out to be a version of that famous cartoon that declares ‘It is not my end of the ship that is sinking’.

The financial crisis of 2008/9 was clearly carefully managed between the US and UK governments and the finiancial institutions. I think that you will find that George W. Bush was President of the USA at the time and that he and his advisors were managing it (and all credit to him / them, for once). If there was a draw down conspiracy, it was much more like to have come from the Right to make George W. Bush out to be an economic hero, the national economy generally being the Republican’s strong card.