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Chalk it up to the holiday spirit — or just smart tax planning — but charitable giving is looking up this month.

Giving in December is already up 15% from 2010, according to the latest tally by Network for Good, a site that enables donors to contribute to more than 10,000 charities across the country. In November, donations rose 20% over the same month last year.

"This year looks a little better, but not back to pre-recession levels yet," said Katya Andresen, Network for Good’s chief strategy officer.

But the best is yet to come. While one-third of all online giving for the year occurs in December, a whopping 22% happens in the last two days of the year, according to Network for Good’s online giving study. That end-of-year rush can mainly be attributed to donors looking for some last-minute tax savings.

"It’s traditional to think about charity in December and of course, it’s the end of the tax year," Andresen said.

Still, with less than 48 hours left in the calendar year, it’s unlikely this will be a substantially better year for charities after three years in a row of lackluster giving.

Largest donations of 2011

After sinking in 2008 and 2009, donations still lag far behind pre-recession levels. Total charitable contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations increased slightly in 2010 to $290.9 billion — but remained below 2007’s $310.6 billion, according to Giving USA, a foundation that tracks charitable contributions cash advance loans.

Although Geoffrey Brown, executive director of the organization, says it’s still too early to say how 2011 will fare in comparison to last year, "giving is probably going to be flat, if anything," he noted.

Stagnant wage growth, high unemployment, Europe’s debt crisis and uncertainty about the economy have weighed on donors, while the government has drawn down support substantially, explained Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy.

"This year was a little better than last year, but, of course, last year wasn’t so good," he said.

In a survey by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, 54% of 152 organizations said they raised more money in November and during the first part of December than they had at the same time last year. Nearly 60% of charities predicted they would have an overall gain in donations in 2011, while 28% said donations would fall this year.

"This was a year in which there were certainly disasters both at home and abroad, but not at the scale that we have seen in the past," explained Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

"Even Japan giving was small, it was nothing like the crisis in Haiti," she said referring to the earthquake and tsunami that rocked the Asian nation in March. 

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Laclede Group Inc. said fiscal third-quarter profit more than tripled on improved performance at the company’s gas utility and the sale of propane inventories.

Net income for the three months ended June 30 rose to $15.4 million, or 65 cents a share, from $4.4 million, or 20 cents, in the same period last year, the St. Louis-based company said. Sales rose 6 percent to $344.3 million.

Earnings rose by $11.6 million at Laclede Gas, the utility that sells natural gas to 630,000 customers in St faxless payday advance. Louis and surrounding Missouri counties.

The utility said it benefited from a rate increase that took effect in September as well as the sale of propane inventories no longer needed to serve customers.

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The great tax holiday of 2011 for air travelers is just about over.

By Monday, most U.S. airlines had raised fares to reap the benefit of lower federal taxes on airline tickets. A few airlines that were passing the savings on to consumers changed their minds.

Several federal taxes on airline tickets expired over the weekend after Congress failed to pass legislation to keep the Federal Aviation Administration running at full speed.

Raising the fares allows the airlines to charge the consumer the same amount as before, while pocketing money previously collected for the government.

It could turn into a windfall for airlines if the stalemate in Congress drags on. The government estimates that the expiring taxes total $200 million a week. And with fuel prices much higher than last year, airlines can use the cash.

But some travel experts called the fare increases a public-relations mistake.

“One of the major airlines could have said, `Hey, at least for a week we’re going to give this money back to the consumers,’” said Rick Seaney, who tracks prices as CEO of FareCompare.com. “I’m surprised no one made promotional hay over this.”

Airlines collect various federal fees, including a 7.5 percent tax on all tickets that expired at midnight Friday night. Once the taxes expired, airlines began raising fares by an equal amount. On some tickets, the expired taxes can top 10 percent of the price.

A spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association, a trade group for major U.S. airlines, said consumers will benefit if the tax savings increase airline profits.

“This short-term additional revenue for airlines, which does not mean a fare increase for consumers, benefits all stakeholders _ customers, employees and investors _ by temporarily improving tiny industry margins to better cover costs and enable airlines to invest in their product and service,” the spokeswoman, Jean Medina, said in an email.

US Airways and American Airlines were the first to raise fares. They were joined quickly by United, Continental, Delta, Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue.

Virgin America, which at first bragged about passing the savings on to consumers, changed its mind by Monday. So did Frontier Airlines. Alaska Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines said Monday they had not raised fares.

George Hobica, founder of travel website airfarewatchdog.com, said stores don’t raise prices during tax holidays, and neither should airlines.

“It seems predatory,” he said. “I realize the airlines have to make money, but this is kind of a cheap shot. It’s tone-deaf.”

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A big earnings miss from Caterpillar wasn’t enough to derail a rally that pushed the stock market up 2 percent for the week.

Caterpillar fell almost 6 percent Friday after its second-quarter results came in below analysts’ expectations. Technology stocks rose broadly following strong earnings from the chip maker Advanced Micro Devices and Microsoft.

The Dow Jones industrial average is closing with a loss of 43 points, or 0 payday loans lenders.3 percent, to 12,681. The Standard and Poor’s 500 index is up 1, or 0.1 percent, to 1,345. The Nasdaq is up 24, or 0.9 percent, at 2,589. Each index finished the week higher.

Rising and falling shares were about even on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was lighter than average at 3.3 billion shares.

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The headline on the energy ministry

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has struggled for years to deal with an issue that lies at the heart of Internet services in Canada: how can it foster greater competition from independent Internet providers while also addressing telecom and cable company concerns about network congestion.

In 2009, the CRTC believed it found the right solution. It established Internet traffic management guidelines (often referred to as net neutrality rules) that created limits on how Internet providers could throttle or limit download speeds and it encouraged providers to use

The nation’s top credit card companies are seeing a boost to their bottom lines as consumers are getting better about paying their bills on time.

Five of the top six card issuers on Friday said the rates at which their customers defaulted on their accounts fell in June. Bank of America Corp. reported the biggest drop in defaults, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Discover Financial Services also showing significant improvement.

Late payments were also down. Only Capital One Financial Corp. saw an uptick in payments late by 30 days or more, and that increase was tiny.

Among the top six, only Citibank had not yet submitted its monthly regulatory filing detailing card performance for the month. Its parent, Citigroup Inc., reported second-quarter results earlier in the day, however, giving some insight into its card performance.

The latest data followed reports that show credit card users have far better payment habits than a year ago, when the industrywide charge-off rate peaked at 10.9 percent, according to Federal Reserve data. For the first three months of this year, that rate was down to 6.96 percent _ a significant improvement, but still well below the industry average of 3.82 percent before the recession, which indicates banks will benefit further as default and delinquency rates further improve.

And they should continue to do so. Banks have already written off the balances of most customers expected to default, and those individuals have a hard time getting new credit.

The impact of the improved payment habits was reflected in banks’ second-quarter financial results this week.

Citigroup said that it pulled $757 million out of the pool set aside to cover uncollectable credit card bills, adding to its $3.3 billion profit for the quarter. That followed a report from JPMorgan Chase on Thursday, which posted a $5.4 billion profit for the period, boosted by a $1 billion reduction in loss reserves cash advance no faxing.

And much of Capital One’s 50 percent profit leap reported Tuesday was due to the $579 million it released from reserves. Analyst Henry Coffey of Sterne Agee estimated 81 cents of the $1.97 per share profit, or about 41 percent, came from that reserve release.

Last month, Discover Financial Services said it released $401 million from its reserves, helping to more than triple the company’s second-quarter profit.

Also goosing bank bottom lines: Card holders are using their credit cards more. That trend is now clear, after 51 percent of the U.S. card market has reported its second-quarter results, said Morgan Stanley analyst Glenn Fodor.

Citigroup said purchase volume rose 1.5 percent.

JPMorgan Chase’s customers spent 10 percent more using their cards. Discover said sales volume on its namesake cards rose 9 percent.

Bank of America and American Express Co. are slated to report next week, and both are expected to show similar gains in spending.

The Federal Reserve said total balances on revolving credit, which is mostly cards, rose slightly in May to $793.13 billion. That’s still nearly 19 percent below the peak balances of $973.64 billion in August 2008, but reflected an uptick in spending after months of belt-tightening by consumers.

What’s less clear is if the higher spending will continue.

Borrowing is typically a sign of confidence in the economy, and the weak jobs market and higher unemployment last month may discourage further spending.

And even when the recovery gains steam, few economists say they expect consumers to pile on debt again after spending the last two years paying it down.

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A study commissioned by Samsung into cancers among six of its semiconductor workers found they were unrelated to exposure to chemicals on the job but the electronics giant is not yet releasing the full results.

U.S.-based Environ International Corp. on Thursday announced the broad findings of a study it conducted over the past year of several Samsung chip manufacturing facilities.

Samsung commissioned the investigation last July to try and allay public anxieties. The company says that 26 current or former workers in production, research and development or office work at semiconductor facilities have contracted leukemia or lymphoma since 1998, while 13 have died.

The South Korean company said it had no plans to immediately publish the study as doing so could compromise the trade secrets of Samsung and its suppliers.

The six cases covered by the study have also been the subject of an ongoing court case in South Korea. Late last month, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled that two of them could be related to exposure to toxic chemicals on the job. Four of the people have died.

Samsung Electronics Co. is the world’s largest manufacturer of memory chips used in personal computers, mobile phones, digital cameras and other products.

Environ said in a statement that that Samsung’s current manufacturing operations fall “well within accepted standards” for exposure to chemicals and other substances.

Environ officials, including CEO Steve Washburn, appeared at a press conference held at Samsung’s Giheung semiconductor plant in the city of Yongin, south of Seoul.

“The study further concluded that the scientific evidence does not support a link between workplace exposure and the diagnosed cancers in six cases that underwent specific review,” the company said.

It said that in four of the six cancer cases it studied “there was no evidence” of exposure to an agent that would have caused the illnesses, while in the other two “exposures to cancer-causing agents were substantially below levels of exposure associated with an increased risk of cancer.” Those agents included formaldehyde and ionizing radiation.

Samsung, which has long said its facilities are safe, welcomed the results. Still, Kwon Oh-hyun, the Samsung executive in charge of semiconductors, said the company would not immediately release the Environ study.

“We will consider disclosing the report,” he said, after discussing the issue internally and with suppliers free credit score.

That stance disappointed activists supporting plaintiffs in the court case.

Kong Jeong-ok, an occupational health physician and a member of a support group, called for Samsung to act fast.

“First, disclose the full report,” Kong said after the presentation, which she attended. She also urged Samsung to consult with civil groups, experts and the government before doing so to ensure “transparency and reliability.”

Paul Harper, the Environ official who oversaw the study, said that releasing the report was up to Samsung. He also declined to disclose how much Samsung paid his company to carry out the probe, citing client confidentiality.

He also said that Environ focused on the six specific cancer cases at Samsung’s request.

Kwon denied that Samsung commissioned the study so it could be used as evidence in the ongoing court case.

The Seoul Administrative Court last month ordered the government’s Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service to compensate the families of two dead women. It ruled that while the exact cause of their deaths has not been determined, it could be presumed that they were exposed to toxic chemicals and radiation on the job.

It upheld the service’s findings, however, that the cancer cases of three other workers, two of whom are alive, were unrelated to their work at Samsung, though their attorneys are appealing the ruling.

Five of the six original cases are currently being contested in court as the family of another worker who died last year dropped out.

Samsung is not a defendant in the case, but has cooperated with the welfare service. Yonhap news agency reported that the agency has filed an appeal in the two rulings it lost.

Environ said it carried out the study with Samsung’s full cooperation. It also said the study’s design and implementation were reviewed by an independent advisory panel which included academic experts from institutions such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Yale, but that they were not asked to endorse the conclusions.

Separately, Samsung said Thursday that it plans to expand investments in a research institute it runs devoted to semiconductor health and safety and would also upgrade health programs for employees.

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