The economic collapse is a fear scheme that can make sure people abandon their normal disapproval of the coercion of their neighbors and call for the intervention of the strong arm of the compulsive authority. This is an ideal strategy if you have already legally plundered your subjects to what seems to be the maximum and they start to collapse.

It is important that you blame the collapse on the remaining freedoms of your subjects. The solution then is to take away these remaining freedoms. By this time it is possible to buy whole struggling companies with cheap money you run from the printing press. This extra money is not likely to raise prices, since the collapse causes people to sell assets to raise capital to pay down debt. You will take the other side of the trade by buying their assets, raising money with taxes, selling favorable legislation to certain industries and straight out printing of money (monetization of debt by your central bank or quantative easing).

It seems a wasteful thing to buy assets from your tax slaves, instead of directly confiscating them. Remember however that you are now at the forefront of extortion and close to getting protests. The subjects ought to think they are engaged in a voluntary contractual arrangement, to which they are more likely to comply. Remember also that it does not really cost you anything, since you type the amount you need into your bank account. As far you finance it with debt, you never intend to pay off these debts and just roll it on forever into new debt until you default.