I think it was just some crazy guy, but if it was actually the government then the only reason why I could think they would do this would be to start a war. They would do this because in the past World War 1 got us to the Roaring 20s which was an amazing economic time period for the US and also World War 2, which got us out of the Great Depression, so wars in general seem to help the economy more than anything and that could possibly help us get out of the current depression, but that is only if it was a large, multi-country war, and also if the government was actually responsible.