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In either (euro) place

The jokes in The Lighter Side Of The Euro Zone Crisis (Report on Business – Oct. 27) brought to mind an oldie but goodie: Heaven is where the police are British, the lovers French, the mechanics German, the chefs Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians.

Timothy Garton Ash (Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock, Euro Talk, Market Shock – Oct. 27) writes that what, at heart, is making it so hard to get a financial consensus is that "What one nation insists upon, the other cannot abide." The problem besetting Europe is that each nation thinks that Heaven is where it's the chef/mechanic/lover/cop/organizer and Hell is where it's the other guys.

Nobody, it seems, wants to be the banker – in either place.

Gerrit O'Neill, St. John's

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Registering disapproval

Quebec Public Security Minister Robert Dutil claims the federal government intends to erase long-gun-registry data out of "ideological blindness" and insists that Quebec be given the data in order to maintain a provincial registry (Quebec, Ottawa In Long-Gun Showdown – Oct. 27). Any provincial registry would garner even less compliance than a federal registry, because individuals could simply buy guns from outside their province. Some would abide, but many would see the ineffectiveness of the federal registry, and be skeptical of any half-hearted provincial effort. The federal government has wasted enough money on gun registries; the provinces do not need to waste even more.

Matt Tallman, London, Ont.

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Sixty per cent of Canadian voters did not vote for the Harper Conservatives, yet this government feels it has a mandate to destroy the data base of the long-gun registry, which belongs to all of us. We are lucky to have Quebec, a voice of reason and sanity, crying out against the scorched-earth policy of the ideologues.

Jim Reynolds, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

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Sharks, seals

You write of shark finning that "just because it is a cultural tradition doesn't make it defensible" (When Culture Is Cruel – editorial, Oct 27). Sounds like the seal hunt to me.

Tim Jeffery, Toronto

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Occupy 'truths'

Tom Velk (Occupy This Truth: Worldwide, The Rich Aren't Getting Richer – Oct. 27) makes note of the "nightmare dreams" that the Occupiers represent: "class warfare, involuntary redistribution and an antagonism to capitalism's rules of law." Class warfare has been going on forever, and when has redistribution ever been voluntary? The poor gained redistribution through the exercise of collective power to share in the wealth they helped create.

Capitalism's rules of law? The rules that would lend money to a home buyer who didn't have to prove his or her ability to repay? Or the rules artificially lowering interest rates so cheap money was available to wildly distort entrepreneurial behaviour and inflate bubbles?

The rules of capitalism since 1980 are like the rules in Butch Cassidy's knife fight. The first rule is that there were no rules. That's left today's 99 per cent feeling just like Harvey Logan.

Miles Tompkins, Antigonish, N.S.

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Tom Velk's main assertion that the economic status of poor nations has improved over the past seven decades is factually correct but lacks three important qualifiers.

First, most of that improvement took place in the buoyant postwar years. The recent trajectory is not promising.

Second, that improvement was monopolized by a limited group of countries. A businesswoman in Taiwan is probably better off than her peasant grandmother; the same cannot be said for a subsistence farmer in Niger.

Third, this change took the form primarily of growth over distribution. Growing inequality within nations is corrosive and gnaws away at whatever gains in well-being might come from simple increases in national wealth. The Occupiers have a sharper perception of the real world of economic change than does Prof. Velk.

Amy Kaler, Edmonton

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Staying on and on

As a society, we seem to value the "idea" of freedom and spare time, yet much I've read suggests early retirees often become more depressed than content (Staying On – And On And On – The Job – Oct. 27). We realize too late our time at work was meaningful, and after the novelty begins to wear off, I think many people long to make an impact in the world again, however small, and find they cannot.

I'm in my 20s and I'm already planning for a "golden years" career, perhaps with gradually reduced hours if need be, rather than an all-out (and expensive) retirement of leisurely sitting on my bum and fading away into obscurity and poor health.

Gerald Jacobs, Beausejour, Man.

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With more workers staying on the job longer, there are fewer entry level jobs available. If older people retire when they are expected to, companies and governments could get new hires at lower salaries and actually save money (for those expensive pensions) while investing in their companies' future staff.

Lorraine Adderley, Barrie, Ont.

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Ford v. Walsh

I was at a mall fair once with my two preschoolers and was accosted by a clown who was amusing the crowd (Games People Don't Play: It's Ulcer Time At The CBC – Oct. 27). At that very moment, I had lost sight of my children. Needless to say I was not a willing partner to his shenanigans as he followed me, aping my distress. We have no idea what Rob Ford was dealing with when he was ambushed by Mary Walsh.

Evelyn Wotherspoon, Calgary

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Let's see: the Princess Warrior versus someone who fancies himself the Warrior Prince (at least when it comes to slaying waste at city hall, not that there's been a lot of slaying, but I digress).

Since the Prince hid in the bushes at the sight of the Princess, I'd say, Round 1 to the Princess.

Dropping the f-bomb when calling in reinforcements is bad form, but summoning help does seem to have made the Princess pack it in, so Round 2 to the Prince.

Please, please can you write an editorial urging Mary Walsh to run for T.O.'s mayor? I haven't laughed this much in a long time.

Janice Simmons, Vancouver

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I'm not a Rob Ford fan but I agree with Margaret Wente that his privacy is paramount at home when subjected (yawn) to the very stale antics of Mary Walsh's Princess Warrior.

It's also important not to forget that the taxpayer-subsidized CBC is the very same corporation that inexplicably reportedly continues to pay Mr. Ford's loudmouth buddy, Don Cherry, more than $700,000 a year. The solution? CBC presents … The Battle of the Nitwits, pitting a sword-waving Ms. Walsh against a hockey stick-wielding Mr. Cherry, and, one hopes, we see the last of both.

Dan Fraser, Toronto

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Guess we all know how to scare Toronto's mayor on Halloween.

Wendy Fredricks, Toronto

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