You might call it CONSPIRACY THEORY – but only if you ignore the facts.  Today I explain to you the government’s social engineering of the housing marketing, and where both the mortgage crisis of 08 and the newly proclaimed rent crisis fit into that… and where this social engineering ultimately leads.  I’m Bryan Ellis, and this is a very disconcerting Episode #172.----Hello, SDI Nation!  Welcome to the podcast of record for savvy, self-directed investors like you!What is a crisis?  One definition of CRISIS is a time of intense difficulty or distress.  But there’s another definition – definition #3 if you use Google’s ‘define’ keyword – which is: “the turning point of a disease when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death”.  When the media – or the government – uses the word crisis, that’s the definition they’re using.But the recovery or death that will happen isn’t actually related to an economic situation.  It’s related to a policy objective.  In other words, when you hear the word “crisis” in the news, what that means is that somebody in government has decided that it’s time to implement a new policy, and that conditions “on the ground” are ripe for that change.One of those non-crisis crises is happening right now, actually.  CNBC recently reported on a study done by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.It comes from Harvard… it’s got to be accurate, right?Nope, not at all.The basic crux of the matter is this:  The study says that more people than ever are renting rather than owning, and that at least half of those renters are paying more in rent than they should be.  Of course, what they “should” be paying is wholly subjective.  Nevertheless, Harvard is declaring there to be a crisis.  And you know what happens with crises, right?  The government gets involved and takes control.Allow me to share with you where current events fit into a broader history of governmental manipulation of the housing markets.The biggest semi-recent contributor to this mess was the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 signed into law by the 2nd worst president in history, Jimmy Carter.  That act required banks to begin lending to non-credit-worthy borrowers under threat of punishment from the government.  Long-held financial standards were kicked to the curb in favor of mostly race-based qualification criteria.Then in the early 90’s, President Clinton pushed the Community Reinvestment Act even further, requiring lenders to make loans that would be judged as, at very best, questionable by any reasonable mind.Congress did as it usually does… and made things far, far worse.  The real nail in the coffin was when, in the 90’s, Congress authorized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy those loans and, in effect, make the U.S. government the largest holder of mortgage debt.  In fact, Fannie Mae’s share of the secondary market reached a whopping 90%.  The government had, without anyone really noticing, taken control of the mortgage market.So what was happening was fundamentally dangerous:  It was a situation in which credit standards no longer applied and absolutely anybody could get a loan… and all of those loans were ultimately centralized in one organization – Fannie Mae – which is, no matter how you slice it, a government entity.To make it all worse… these loans were being given to people who, quite objectively, could not afford the loans.  They were able to buy because of fancy constructs like interest-only or even negative amortizations yielded payments that were very low… but those low payments never lasted beyond a few years.So you’d think that the government would have a vested interest in making sure that, somehow, some way, that those loans WOULDN’T go bad and that the market would heal itself without there being a real crisis?Wrong again, my friends… because the grander scheme had not yet been achieved.Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff to President Obama, once made a statement that was perfectly embodied in the