It's the side effect of trying to control a complex, chaotic system. Kondratyev showed fairly definitively that the economy would do what the economy would want to do. Essentially, the economy is wanting to correct, and can't, because people are constricting financial actions (numbers go up).

Might there be a few politicos with enough hubris (or dumb enough) to think they can turn the economy on and off like a light? Sure. But I think a lot more think that if numbers keep going up, they get mo money.