The mirror, detached from it, rested against another wall, and the drawers were receptacles for a miscellaneous assortment of articles from soiled napkins down to bottle wires and dust.

But the recession is already undoing some of the rise in inequality as the capital gains, bonuses and Wall Street profits that fuelled much of the gains in top incomes turn to dust.

I can see the brown wall of dust coming toward us with the wind.