“This month, youth unemployment topped one million. Meanwhile, tuition fees have trebled, the EMA has been scrapped, and firms like Vodafone and Barclays continue to avoid paying vast amounts of tax while we are told planned cuts to welfare and the arts must go ahead. At the heart of all this is money, the one thing that none of us can live without, but so few of us really understand. In this special issue of Dazed, we try to take a cultural look at the big picture, and ask how we got here… and what can be done.”