Maybe it’s because the market is making me queasy, I didn’t watch the action today.

I know gold has broken out, to all appearances, but over the last several years, appearances have been knocked out of the ring more than once.

Walking Montevideo’s streets – even in the rain (and it’s been raining the past day or so) – takes my mind off all the feverish commentary from gold bugs and bashers – the sum total of which spells WE DON’T KNOW.

In the next few weeks, the break-out will either be confirmed or dispelled and then the lucky soothsayers will pat themselves on the back (and why not?), declare their genius, and make the rounds of the talking shows as the new Merlins of the Market. Reporters will get to shoot off snappy little missives about equities “plunging” or “soaring” or “sliding.” Each time the reason will be different. In between, we will have the entertainment of trying to pin the tail on the billion dollar donkey – Goldman Sachs. The donkey will kick occasionally and poor Matt Taibbi will get custard in his face for trying to educate the masses. And so it goes on.

Gold was said to be following the equity market and moving against the dollar. But then today the markets went to 10,000 and gold stumbled a bit, while the dollar index stayed low (mid 75’s).  If gold is the new money, that makes sense. It stayed down, like the dollar. What drives it? I’d say speculation, right now. When equities look solid, gold slips, along with money. At least, that’s my five minutes worth of tea-leaf reading. Tomorrow, gold will move against money, and then we can all go back to the old refrain about inflation expectations driving gold.

Onto other things.

Who said Montevideo was cheap? It’s not, though I hear Brazil is more expensive. A young pharmacist, struggling alone on the street with his three month year old daughter and my bad Spanish, gave me the lowdown. His electric bill was around $US200/mth. That’s for a man, his wife and two children. His food bill runs to about $US200/mth. His gas bill was around $US50. That’s the same or a bit more than many families in the US. And in Uruguay, $US500-$1000/mth is a good salary. So food is really about three times more expensive than in the US.

People are careful with the lights. Which I’m used to, from India.  Last night, my landlady Gabriela was groaning about the German woman who lived in my room last year. She ran a hot shower three times a day and used the hair dryer incessantly.  Gaby said she was going to switch to gas to heat the water. Gas is cheaper here.  She goes through 2-3 cans of gas a month for her space heaters and it comes to about a thousand pesos a month.

Montevideo has enough of a gay culture that someone can run a hotel catering to male couples, impeccably maintained and done up. Exposed brick, walls with stenciled designs, ikebana, polished wood, a flower garden, a kennel, and a tub on the terrace. It charges $50 a day for a couple, breakfast included. A good business.

Revitalize the inner cities? Just drop a squadron of gays into them.