GFC Explained

Now do you get it? Bruce Petty was famous for his intricate diagrams purporting to explain how economies and politics work. Clearly, we’re not meant to understand them. Perhaps the message is that even our decision-makers didn’t really know what was going on. The dire effects of the global financial crisis of 2008–09 were plain for all to see, as many large US investment banks collapsed, and other banks in America and Europe got very wobbly before they were propped up by governments and central banks. But understanding exactly why it all happened is much harder.

On 6 April 2023 Bruce Petty died at the age of 93. Over a six-decade-long career, Petty drew for Sydney’s Daily Mirror, The Australian and The Age, as well as for international publications such as Punch, The New Yorker and Esquire.