The main thing people tell you ahead of your first visit to the United States is that it’s expensive. “You’ll leave America broke,” they say, nodding sagely, “a loaf of bread is, like, $8.”

Who knows when the collective travel unconscious picked up this particular factoid - maybe in an alternate-1980s, like Alan Moore’s Watchmen - but it’s a monstrous falsehood: America is unquestionably, eye-wateringly cheap.

But what was thrilling on my first journey to the States in late-2009, with our dollar buying about USD$0.86c, paradoxically feels alarming on my third trip, with the exchange rate even “better” now, hovering just under USD$1.10.

Great for holiday shopping, but alarming because thinking a little more deeply about buying that large punnet of organic blueberries for a steal at $2.99 leads you to wonder exactly who IS making any money over here.

It was reported this year that the wealthiest Americans - the fabled “1%” - take in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income; “In terms of wealth rather than income,” the report in Vanity Fair expanded, “the top 1 percent control 40 percent.”

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