Meanwhile, Just Outside Montevideo, A Frugal President

Jose Mujica, president of Uruguay, leads with no frills.

"If anyone could claim to be leading by example in an age of austerity, it is José Mujica, Uruguay's president, who has forsworn a state palace in favour of a farmhouse, donates the vast bulk of his salary to social projects, flies economy class and drives an old Volkswagen Beetle." The Guardian.

This is a man and a country we know little about. Maybe we should change that. Here is a beginning.