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In his annual report tabled last week, Auditor General Jim McCarter accused the Ontario government of mismanaging the prices of auto insurance, electricity and liquor.

If his findings had been available for scrutiny before the Oct. 6 election, Ontario voters might have given even fewer seats to the Liberal party, which ended up with a one-seat minority.

I wish the Opposition parties were as comprehensive in their criticism as McCarter was. They had an opportunity to attack the government on pocketbook issues and came up short.

Here are some numbers that tell the story from a mammoth 462-page report, available online at www.auditor.on.ca.

Auto insurance: The Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) approves rate filings by insurers and protects consumers from being charged an incorrect rate.

In a five-year period, FSCO reviewed 22 complaints about incorrect rates — and only five of them were initiated by the public. (The rest were self-reported by insurers.)

“Such errors can have a significant impact on consumers — we noted examples of overbilling that totalled between $1 million to $11 million,” the auditor’s report says.

“However, FSCO did not have any procedures for periodically checking that insurers were charging the approved rates.”

The agency said it planned to verify that insurers were charging only authorized rates. But why didn’t it do so earlier? It’s been approving insurance rates for several decades.

Electricity: The Ontario Energy Board has a responsibility to educate consumers on how to understand their complex electricity bills.

They need to understand the risks and potential benefits of signing retail fixed-price contracts. They need to know about the time-of-use system and how they can save by adjusting power usage.

But in a 2010 focus group, many people said they couldn’t figure out the electricity charges on their bills and weren’t aware of the board’s role in protecting them.

Meanwhile, the board received 17,000 complaints in five years. Most were about electricity retailers misrepresenting themselves, switching supply without a contract, even forging signatures on contracts.

Since it licenses retailers, the board is expected to play a proactive role in protecting consumers from unfair business practices.

“Despite the high number of public complaints, we noted little enforcement action against retailers with repeated offences. Since July 2003, the board has issued only four enforcement orders in 2009 and just one in 2010,” the report said.

Right on, Jim McCarter. Why has so little been done to discipline the brazen door-to-door sellers who break all the rules? This has gone on for a decade.

Liquor: The Liquor Control Board of Ontario can set retail prices for the products it sells. In the latest fiscal year, it had sales of $4.6 billion and net income of $1.56 billion (virtually all the profit goes to the province).

Most large retailers use their buying power to negotiate with suppliers to drive down costs. But the LCBO, one of the world’s largest purchasers of beverage alcohol, doesn’t do so.

It has no incentive to negotiate lower wholesale costs — since that would result in lower prices and, in turn, lower profits for the province.

“The LCBO should assess the feasibility of negotiating as low a price as possible with its suppliers,” McCarter said after releasing the report.

“With retail prices still kept at desired levels, this could result in higher profits for the province while still encouraging responsible consumption.”

Let’s be grateful that the auditor is doing his job and telling the truth. Ontario consumers pay too much for basic services and get too little from government agencies that are supposed to protect their interests.

Let’s hope his efforts continue to bear fruit in the years to come.

Ellen Roseman writes about personal finance and consumer issues. You can reach her at eroseman@thestar.ca.

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When it comes to Christmas sweaters, even thrift stores lower their standards.

As she climbed through a stack of boxes in the back of the Goodwill store in south St. Louis County, a district manager explained that sweaters that are too faded, or have too many lint pills on them, are usually recycled.

“This sweater would normally never make it (to the sales floor) in a million years,” said Latrice Clayborne, as she pulled out a lint-infested brown cardigan with a snowman, a sprig of holly and white snowflakes on it.

But when it comes to “ugly Christmas sweaters,” Goodwill, like many resale shops around town, has started to make exceptions. They know that no matter the condition, these items of questionable fashion won’t last long once they put them out on the racks.

Yes, the holidays are approaching, which means that “ugly Christmas sweater” season is also in full swing no faxing payday loan. The sweaters, popular in the 1980s, have found a second life in recent years as part of an ironic fashion trend that pokes fun at the aesthetics of the garments.

“People are calling, desperate to see if we have any,” said Faith Sandler, executive director of the nonprofit that runs the ScholarShop. “They are going to events where they are trying to outdo one another with how ugly the sweaters are. The more stuff hanging from them, the better!”

She noticed an uptick in traffic to the stores’ holiday sweaters rack last year. But this year, they seem to be even hotter commodities, she said, so much so that they can hardly keep them in stock.

“I’m just so glad they’re cool, because for a while I was embarrassed by the rack,” she added.

Josh Goldman, 26, of Chesterfield, went to several stores over the weekend in search for an over-the-top sweater that would elicit chuckles

The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service said Monday it is seeking to move quickly to close 252 mail processing centers and slow first-class delivery next spring, citing steadily declining mail volume.

The cuts are part of $3 billion in reductions aimed at helping the agency avert bankruptcy next year. It would virtually eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day, a change in first-class delivery standards that have been in place since 1971.

The plant closures are expected to result in the elimination of roughly 28,000 jobs nationwide.

At a news briefing, postal vice president David Williams stressed the move was necessary to cut costs as more people turn to the Internet for email communications and bill payment. After reaching a peak of 98 million in 2006, first-class mail volume is now at 78 million. It is projected to drop by roughly half by 2020.

“Are we writing off first class mail? No,” Williams said. “Customers are making their choices, and what we are doing is responding to the current market conditions and placing the postal service on a path to allow us to respond to future changes.”

The cuts, now being finalized, would close 252 out of 461 mail processing centers across the country starting next April. Because the consolidations typically would lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency also would lower delivery standards.

Currently, first-class mail is supposed to be delivered to homes and businesses within the continental U.S. in one day to three days. That will lengthen to two days to three days, meaning mailers no longer could expect next-day delivery in surrounding communities. Periodicals could take between two days and nine days.

Williams said in certain narrow situations first-class mail might be delivered the next day _ if, for example, newspapers, magazines or other bulk mailers are able to meet new tighter deadlines and drop off shipments directly at the processing centers that remain open.

But in the vast majority of cases, everyday users of first-class mail will see delays of one or two days, including those who pay bills by check, send birthday cards, write letters, or receive prescription drugs or Netflix DVDs by mail no faxing 1 hour payday loans.

After five years in the red, the post office faces imminent default this month on a $5.5 billion annual payment to the Treasury for retiree health benefits. It is projected to have a record loss of $14.1 billion next year. The Postal Service has said the agency must make cuts of $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable.

It already has announced a 1-cent increase in first-class mail to 45 cents beginning Jan. 22.

Separate bills that have passed House and Senate committees would give the Postal Service more authority and liquidity to stave off immediate bankruptcy. But prospects are somewhat dim for final congressional action on those bills anytime soon, especially if the measures are seen in an election year as promoting layoffs and cuts to neighborhood post offices.

On Monday, the Postal Service said it welcomed congressional changes that would give it more authority to reduce delivery to five days a week, raise stamp prices and reduce health care and other labor costs. But the Postal Service said it was opposed to provisions in both the House and Senate measures that would require additional layers of review before it could close post offices and processing centers.

“Speed is very important to the Postal Service in our ability to capture savings,” Williams said.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate committee that oversees the post office, believes the agency is taking the wrong approach. She says service cuts will only push more consumers to online bill payment or private carriers such as UPS or FedEx, leading to lower revenue in the future.

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Online: List of facilities to be closed: http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/our-future-network/study-list-110915.pdf

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The plan central banks announced Wednesday could ease financial strains that threaten Europe’s common currency and may tip the global economy into recession.

The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the central banks of Canada, Japan and Switzerland said they’d make it easier for banks to get the dollars they need to lend.

The move was a powerful confidence-booster, a signal that central banks are prepared to act in concert to encourage lending.

Stocks rocketed in response.

“The coordination was a big thing,” said Michael Hanson, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “It had a psychological effect.”

Still, the plan isn’t a permanent fix. It doesn’t address the root of Europe’s crisis: Debt burdens are overwhelming Spain, Italy and some other nations and spreading fears that they’ll default. A default by one or more governments could topple the entire continent’s economy. Skittish banks that hold much of these countries’ bonds have been reluctant to lend to each other.

On Tuesday, the finance ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro failed to reach an agreement on resolving the crisis. Their failure raised the stakes for the leaders of the 27 countries in the European Union who will hold their own meeting next week. Investors will be looking to the leaders to show progress toward a longer-term solution.

Analysts say the eurozone nations ultimately must approve closer coordination of their spending policies so fiscal discipline can be imposed on individual countries.

Here are some questions and answers about the move and the European crisis.

Q. What did the Fed and other central banks do Wednesday?

A. They agreed to make it easier for banks to obtain U.S. dollars to fund loans all over the world. This should lead banks to loosen credit, which had tightened because of Europe’s financial crisis. Many banks lend in dollars because so much trade and investment is denominated in the U.S. currency. The Fed, the ECB and the other central banks agreed to lower the interest rate on dollar loans.

Q. How would this help?

A. The Fed has provided dollars to all five central banks since May 2010. But the interest rates were too high for many banks. The Fed and the other central banks are easing those rates. And the ECB will reduce the collateral banks must provide to get dollar loans. All this should lead more European banks to borrow dollars from the ECB. That’s important because those banks have had less access to dollars through other means, such as American money market funds. The money funds have reduced lending to European banks for fear the banks have too much debt from troubled countries. If those countries defaulted, banks in Europe could collapse.

Q. Does this mean the Fed is “bailing out” European banks?

A. No. Here’s how it works: The Fed provides dollars to the ECB. In exchange, it gets an equal amount of euros. The ECB then lends the dollars to banks. If the banks don’t pay back the loans, the ECB absorbs the loss. The ECB returns the dollars to the Fed at the same exchange rate as the initial swap.

Q. How will we know if this plan works?

A. One sign will be what happens when the ECB offers dollar loans on Wednesday. Most analysts expect many more banks to take advantage of the dollar loans now that the terms have eased.

Q. Will this do anything for governments like Greece and Italy that are on the verge of default?

A. Not really. It might help calm investors’ nervousness about the overall crisis. It could slightly lower rates that those countries pay. But it won’t reduce their debt burdens. It does buy European leaders time by keeping credit flowing. But investors will soon turn attention to the European leaders’ meeting next Friday. Geoffrey Yu, a strategist at UBS, said markets could plummet if that meeting doesn’t produce results.

Q: How did Europe get into this mess?

A: The euro made it easier to do business across Europe and made the continent a potent economic bloc. Yet the experiment was flawed. Countries were harnessed to one another despite different economies and cultures. Banks lent at low rates even to weaker countries like Greece. The euro meant lenders didn’t have to worry that individual countries would run up inflation that would reduce the value of the loans. Governments overspent for years and got away with it because they could borrow at low rates. But once the Great Recession struck, their debts became devastating.

Q: Why is a solution so hard?

A: The ECB and Germany have resisted aggressive action. Many economists want the central bank to buy the debt of Italy and other struggling countries. That would push down interest rates and ease those countries’ borrowing costs. The ECB has bought Italian and Spanish bonds. But it’s loath to do so in a big way. The ECB says it must control inflation, not be a lender of last resort to governments. And it doesn’t want to set a precedent for bailing out financially ailing nations. Germany opposes one idea _ creating joint bonds backed by the whole eurozone _ because it fears its own borrowing costs would surge if it had to borrow jointly with weaker countries.

Q: What options are European officials considering?

A: Things that would have been unthinkable just weeks ago. One option is to have countries cede control of their budgets to a central authority. That authority would stop countries from spending beyond their means. There has also been talk of forming an elite group of euro nations to guarantee each other’s loans. It would require fiscal discipline from any country that wants to join. Once that happens, the ECB might be more willing to buy government bonds aggressively, thereby pushing down interest rates and easing governments’ debt burdens. Analysts say that some progress toward such a solution at the summit next Friday is crucial.

Q: Can Europe’s leaders solve this mess?

A: The coordinated move the central banks announced Wednesday is expected to ease pressure on the financial system in the short run. But a lasting resolution requires persuading up to 17 countries and the ECB to agree to a solution to both ease government debt loads and impose budgetary discipline. “This is not just a crisis of Greece or this or that country,” says Nicolas Veron, senior fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. “It’s a crisis of European institutions.”

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Fast-expanding Gulf carrier Qatar Airways says talks with Airbus over an expected large plane order are now stalled.

The company’s CEO, Akbar al-Baker, said the negotiations were at an impasse Tuesday. He added that he is “pessimistic” about an accord before the end of this week’s Dubai Airshow.

Doha-based Qatar Airways’ fleet of 101 aircraft is dominated by Airbus planes, though it does have orders or options for nearly 90 Boeing jets.

On Tuesday, Qatar Airways announced plans to buy two Boeing 777 cargo planes.

Qatar Airways is increasingly challenging Dubai-based Emirates in the race for long-haul customers that use the Gulf as a transit hub.

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WASHINGTON

Stocks are opening higher as hopes grow that a plan to tackle the European debt crisis will survive.

The European Central Bank surprised markets early Thursday by cutting its benchmark interest rate.

Shortly after the open Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average is up 128 points, or 1.1 percent, to 11,969. The S&P 500 index is up 12 points, or 1 percent, to 1,250. The Nasdaq is up 23, or 0.9 percent, to 2,663.

The Labor Department said the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits dipped slightly last week absolutely free credit score.

Greece’s prime minister surprised markets with a call this week to put a European rescue package to a vote. The prime minister was in an emergency meeting Thursday after members of his government called for him to step down.

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Germany’s unemployment rate slipped to 6.5 percent in October, an improvement credited to seasonal factors.

The Federal Labor Agency said Wednesday that 2.737 million people were registered as jobless in Europe’s biggest economy last month _ 59,000 fewer than the previous month. The unadjusted jobless rate was down from 6.6 percent in October.

However, the agency says that the seasonally adjusted jobless rate ticked up to 7 percent from 6.9 percent. In adjusted terms, the number of unemployed people increased by 10,000 following months of declines.

Germany’s economic growth has been losing steam lately amid clouds over the global economy and the eurozone debt crisis.

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China remains confident Europe can solve its crippling debt crisis even though it continues to balk at requests for it to use its financial firepower.

President Hu Jintao told reporters Monday his country is closely following developments in Europe as the 17 countries that use the euro grapple with a debt crisis that has seen three countries bailed out and threatening to engulf Italy, the eurozone’s third largest economy .

“We are convinced that Europe has the wisdom and the competence to conquer its momentary difficulties,” he said during an official visit to Austria.

Europe is closely watching comments by Hu and other Chinese officials in the hope the country will use some of its huge cash reserves to help prevent the region’s debt crisis from spilling over into increasingly shaky economies like Italy and Spain.

Beijing so far has promised to help only by continuing business as usual, trading with Europe and stockpiling some of China’s multibillion-dollar trade surpluses in the safest European government bonds.

Eurozone leaders last week presented the broad outlines of a new anti-crisis strategy. At the center of this strategy is an expansion of the eurozone’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility. Since the currency union’s finances are already stretched, it wants non-European investors to help fund a special investment vehicle that would act alongside the EFSF.

Although many details of that plan have still to be agreed, this investment vehicle could help the EFSF buy up bonds from struggling countries like Italy and Spain or support bank recapitalizations in poorer eurozone countries payday loans.

Getting more resources behind Europe’s main anti-crisis weapon is particularly important if market pressures continue to rise on Italy. On Friday, Rome had to pay record interest rates at a bond auction, indicating that it may soon have to request help from the eurozone to keep its funding costs in check.

No signs of more direct Chinese plans to help have emerged during Hu’s visit, which started Sunday and ends in two days, when he flies to the G-20 summit in Cannes, France for talks expected to focus on the eurozone’s crisis.

Instead, Hu suggested Monday that China remained content to let European Union leaders work on a solution.

Hu, who did not take questions, said he believes that the path to a global upswing lies on greater cooperation among the world’s leading economies.

Hu has been courted by major EU countries as the financial crisis unfolds.

He and French President Nicolas Sarkozy talked Thursday by phone and pledged to cooperate to revive global growth, while the chief executive of the EU’s bailout fund visited Beijing on Friday to talk to potential investors.

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Nixon touts trade deal