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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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National home sales figures will be lowered dating back to 2007 after the private trade group that collects them said the numbers were too high.

The National Association of Realtors said Monday it will release the downward revisions for previously occupied homes on Dec. 21.

Among the reasons for the inflated figures, the Realtors group says: changes in the way the Census Bureau collects data, population shifts and some sales being counted twice. Last year’s total sales figure of 4.91 million was the worst in 13 years.

The Realtors consulted with several government and private housing market experts, including the Federal Reserve, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Home Builders, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and CoreLogic, the California-based data firm that first raised doubts about the annual numbers earlier this year.

CoreLogic estimated that the Realtors group overstated sales in 2010 by at least 15 percent.

The changing numbers could impact how economists view data from the trade group. It could also affect companies who use the figures for hiring and expansion plans.

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Investors added about $1 billion to U.S. municipal bond mutual funds in the week that ended Dec. 7, the most since March 2010, as 10-year benchmark yields fell to the lowest since September.

The funds have attracted about $3 billion since mid-October, according to Lipper US Fund Flows data. Yields on top-rated 10-year municipals fell to 2.005 Thursday, from a two-month high of about 2.58 percent on Oct. 13, according to Bloomberg Valuation data. Thursday’s benchmark tax-free yield was just above the 2.003 percent interest rate on Sept. 23, the lowest since the index began in January 2009.

Investors are adding cash to municipal funds to tap into the rally in the $3.7 trillion market and to boost assets they deem relatively safe before month-end, said Matt Fabian, managing director of Concord, Mass.-based Municipal Market Advisors, in a telephone interview.

“It’s probably partly the rally and partly just allocations into year-end, getting portfolios ready for year-end to show a larger allocation of fixed income,” Fabian said.

Net additions in the past couple of months are a reversal from earlier in the year. Investors pulled more than $30 billion out of the funds from November 2010 to June as lingering strains from the recession fueled speculation that municipal defaults would jump.

In contrast with the decline in 10-year yields, interest rates on top-rated tax-exempts maturing in 30 years increased in the past two months to 3.85 percent Thursday, according to Bloomberg data. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

The yield on the longer-maturity index was 185 basis points above that on the 10-year gauge yesterday, the widest gap since at least January 2001, when the Bloomberg Valuation data began.

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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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In one Northern Oklahoma county, oil and wind don’t mix.

That’s where plans by St. Louisan Tom Carnahan’s Wind Capital Group LLC for a large wind farm have run into a roadblock — claims by the Osage Nation that it would interfere with the tribe’s rights to tap oil and gas deposits.

The 15,600-member tribe sued Wind Capital in federal court in October to block the project, which would consist of 94 turbines spread across 15 square miles in Osage County, just northwest of Pawhuska. Power would supply Springfield (Mo.)-based Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., which provides power to regional and local electric cooperative systems in Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma.

The case is scheduled for trial in 10 days. On one level, it pits green power versus fossil fuels. More specifically, it’s a contest between Wind Capital’s rights to erect 400-foot towers on a piece of the tall grass prairie in northern Oklahoma and the tribe’s rights to tap petroleum deposits beneath it.

“The crux of the case rests on the legal standing of the mineral estate and the tribe’s right to develop the minerals as they see fit,” Chris White, Osage Nation’s executive director of governmental affairs, said in an interview.

The dispute exists because Oklahoma is among the states where surface ownership of the land can be separated from rights to oil, natural gas and minerals deposits. Today, some states today are looking at whether to make wind rights separate from surface rights.

The Osage Nation, a tribe whose heritage reaches back hundreds of years, has controlled mineral rights to the 1.5 million acres in Osage County since 1906. Last year, oil and gas companies who lease mineral rights from the tribe produced $360 million worth of petroleum, White said.

Millions of dollars in royalties are distributed to some 4,000-plus tribal members, which own shares in the mineral estate that have been passed down for more than a century. Payments also help finance roads and schools in the county, according to the lawsuit.

Osage Nation officials claim the wind farm will interfere with development of oil and gas properties, which involves installing a network of pipes to gather the petroleum that’s produced.

St. Louis-based Wind Capital, which has leased 8,500 privately-owned acres for the Osage wind farm, disagrees.

In its legal filings and public comments, Wind Capital says it believes petroleum production and wind power can co-exist in the area. The company has promised to comply with the law that gives Osage Nation reasonable access to as much of the surface as necessary to produce oil and gas.

Shortly before the lawsuit was filed, the company said in a letter to the tribe that each turbine will require a foundation of only about 50 feet in diameter paydayloans. In total, the letter said, its equipment would occupy just 1.5 percent of land under lease, leaving plenty of room for oil exploration and production.

“The actual footprint of the wind farm facility is very small in relationship to the total project boundaries,” company executives said in the letter.

Construction was scheduled to begin Nov. 19, according to Wind Capital. A company spokesman said Friday that “pre-construction activities” are underway, but declined additional comment citing the pending lawsuit.

While the Osage Nation had sought an injunction to stop the wind farm, it was Wind Capital that asked the judge to hear the case so quickly.

The company, which operates five wind farms in northwest Missouri, said lenders are reluctant to release funds for construction with the lawsuit pending. And the project hinges on federal production tax credits, so work must be complete by the end of next year. The tax credits, equal to 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour, were most recently approved as part of the 2009 federal Recovery Act.

Officials said the lawsuit “jeopardizes the very existence of the wind facility.”

The parties disagree on whether the project would interfere with current oil and gas production. The Osage Nation says it will, while Wind Capital believes the matter involves only “possible future oil and gas exploration.”

Clashes between mineral rights and surface rights owners aren’t new in places like Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. But traditionally they’ve been disputes between oil and gas companies or lease holders and farmers and ranchers. Only more recently have wind companies and the petroleum industry fought over access to the same real estate.

In Oklahoma, the legislature passed a law earlier this year to address the oil industry’s concerns about wind farms on producing properties and existing oil and gas leases.

Among other provisions, the Exploration Rights Act of 2011 requires wind developers to provide oil and gas companies or leaseholders 30 days notice of intent to construct a wind farm.

The Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association issued a notice to members outlining the industry’s concerns about wind energy development in oil- and gas-producing areas.

Locally, there’s been no conflict between wind and petroleum interests. Missouri has no significant petroleum production. And in Illinois, there’s little, if any, overlap with the oil producing area in southern Illinois and wind farms located in the northern part of the state.

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TOKYO — Honda Motor Co. is recalling 27,000 cars in Canada, and 304,000 vehicles globally, for airbags that may inflate with too much pressure in a crash, send metal and plastic pieces flying and cause injuries or deaths.

Honda said there have been 20 accidents so far related to this problem, including two deaths in the U.S. in 2009.

The Japanese automaker announced the recall Friday, which affects the Accord, Civic, Odyssey, Pilot, CR-V and other models, manufactured in 2001 and 2002.

Photos: A sea of Hondas left behind after Thailand flood

More: After harsh reviews, Honda scrambles to redo Civic in 2013

The recall spans 273,000 vehicles in the U.S., some 27,000 in Canada, nearly 2,000 vehicles in Japan and another 2,000 in other countries. It affected 359 vehicles in Europe — 200 in Germany, 158 in Israel and one in Great Britain, according to Honda.

The latest recall is an expansion of recalls for the same problem in 2008, and again carried out in 2009, as well as last year. The recall now covers about 2 million vehicles worldwide, according to Tokyo-based Honda.

Honda spokesman Hajime Kaneko said the cause for the latest recall was the use of incorrect material in the chemical used to deploy airbags.

The initial cause of the recall was excessive moisture in the inflator propellant, which is part of what inflates the airbag.

But that problem was found later to affect more vehicles than initially estimated, as incidents didn’t stop, and the recall was expanded to account for the possibility that the problem was caused by a defective stamping machine used during production, he said.

Honda is extremely sorry about the recalls but believes the problem has now been taken care of, with no more recalls linked to this problem expected, he said.

Also included in the latest recall are 912 airbag service parts sold for installation in vehicles for collision repair and other reasons, Honda said.

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The 17 finance ministers of the countries that use the euro converged on EU headquarters Tuesday in a desperate bid to save their currency _ and to protect Europe, the United States, Asia and the rest of the global economy from a debt-induced financial tsunami.

The ministers were discussing ideas that would have been taboo only recently, before things got as bad as they are: countries ceding fiscal sovereignty to a central authority; some kind of elite group of euro nations that would guarantee one another’s loans _ but require strong fiscal discipline from anyone wanting membership.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her support for changes to Europe’s current treaties in order to create a fiscal union, that will include binding and enforceable commitments by all euro countries.

“Our priority is to have the whole of the eurozone to be placed on a stronger treaty basis,” Merkel said Tuesday in Berlin. “This is what we have devoted all of our efforts to; this is what I’m concentrating on in all of the talks with my counterparts.”

Merkel acknowledged that changing the treaties _ usually a lengthy procedure _ won’t be easy because not all of the European Unions 27 member states “are enthusiastic about it.” But she dismissed reports that the eurozone, or some nations within the bloc, might go ahead with a swifter treaty between governments.

Changes to existing eurozone rules are being touted as one way the eurozone can get out of its debt crisis, which has already forced bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and is threatening to engulf bigger economies such as Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest. If Italy were to default on its debts of around euro1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion), the fallout could spell ruin for the euro project itself and send shockwaves throughout the global economy.

Even countries outside the eurozone were ratcheting up pressure on the ministers to find a solution. President Barack Obama, meeting with top EU officials on Monday, said a European failure to resolve its debt crisis would complicate his own efforts to create jobs in the U.S. And even Poland, historically wary of German dominance beyond its borders, appealed for help.

“I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is,” Radek Sikorski said in Berlin. “I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity. You have become Europe’s indispensable nation.”

Illustating the urgency is the fact that Eurozone goverments have euro638 billion in past debts coming due in 2012, of which 40 percent needs to be refinanced in the first four months of the year, according to a Barclays Capital estimate last week.

In a reminder of the urgency, Italy’s borrowing rates shot up Tuesday to rates above 7 percent, an unsustainable level on a par with rates that forced the others to seek bailouts. Markets rose generally for the second day on the expectation that the enormous pressures on European ministers would produce results.

At the top of Tuesday’s agenda is finding a means to more fully integrate the eurozone’s disparate nations _ ranging from powerful Germany to tiny Malta _ both politically and financially. And the ministers must do it fast, without the delays caused by democratic niceties like referendums that have led many EU reforms to take years to implement.

France’s finance minister, Francois Baroin, said Tuesday on France-Info radio that countries should integrate their budgets more closely and monitor one another’s spending.

“We have to modify eurozone governance,” Baroin said. “We definitely have to move toward more integrated budgetary consolidation, fiscal convergence with our neighbors.”

He said France and Germany _ which have largely been calling the shots on efforts to overcome the crisis _ will make proposals on how eurozone countries can monitor one another under such a new system.

The 17 ministers are expected to discuss jointly issuing so-called eurobonds _ an all-for-one, one-for-all way of having the different countries guarantee one another’s debts. Right now each nation issues its own bonds, meaning that while Italy pays above 7 percent, Germany pays about 2 percent.

Having stronger countries like Germany stand behind the general European debt would lower Italy’s borrowing rates _ and perhaps avoid a debt spiral that leads to a national bankruptcy. At the same time, it would raise Germany’s cost of borrowing, and that’s why Germany has been fiercely opposed to the eurobond proposal.

A French official said Tuesday that France may propose joint bonds among a subset of eurozone countries _ those with “triple A” credit ratings _ although Germany has said it opposes the idea. The French official said discussions about such so-called “elite bonds” is under discussion ahead of a summit of European Union heads of government in Brussels next week.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the sensitive, closed-door talks are still under way.

Proponents of elite bonds say the proceeds could be used to help the eurozone’s weaker countries deal with their debts, in return for strict conditions being imposed on their budgets. Critics argue that further fragmenting the eurozone into strong countries and weak countries would benefit no one.

On Monday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dismissed reports that such bonds were under serious consideration.

The whole world is watching the developments. It’s not just a currency used by 332 million people that is at stake. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others have said, if the euro fails, so too does the 27-nation European Union, a rousing diplomatic success that united a continent ripped apart by two world wars.

“The biggest threat to the security and prosperity of Poland would be the collapse of the eurozone,” Poland’s Sikorski said Monday. “And I demand of Germany that, for your own sake and for ours, you help it survive and prosper. You know full well that nobody else can do it.”

If the euro fails, bank lending would freeze, stock markets would likely crash, and Europe’s economies would crater. Nations in the eurozone could see their economic output fall temporarily by as much as 50 percent, according to UBS forecasters. The financial and economic pain would spread west and east as the U.S. and Asia get ensnared in the credit freeze and their exports to Europe collapse.

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Angela Charlton in Paris, Melissa Eddy and Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this report. Don Melvin can be reached at http://twitter.com/Don_Melvin

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Forecasters say Hurricane Kenneth is weakening rapidly and has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm in the eastern Pacific.

There is no threat to land from what had been the strongest late-season hurricane in that area on record when it earlier reached Category 4 status.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Wednesday that Kenneth has maximum sustained winds near 110 mph (175 kph). The storm was centered about 840 miles (1,350 kilometers) south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico best payday advance.

It is moving west at 9 mph (15 kph)

Kenneth is expected to weaken further and could be downgraded to a tropical storm by Thursday. There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

The eastern Pacific hurricane season ends Nov. 30.

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The parents of murdered teen Milly Dowler say that phone hacking on behalf of a British tabloid made them think that she was still alive.

Sally Dowler told the inquiry investigating Britain’s media ethics that her 13-year-old daughter’s phone had been cleared of some messages shortly after she disappeared in early 2002, suggesting that she was checking her voicemail.

In fact Milly was dead and the person clearing the messages worked for the News of the World tabloid.

The Dowler parents have previously made similar statements, but Monday was the first time the pair spoke out on national television.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

LONDON (AP) _ Celebrities and crime victims whose personal lives have been exposed in Britain’s press will testify at an inquiry into media ethics payday advance low fees.

The Leveson inquiry is run by a judicial body that could recommend sweeping changes to the way Britons get their news.

Britain’s media ethics probe was set up in the wake of the scandal over phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, which was shut in July after it became clear that the tabloid had systematically broken the law. Most horrific was the news that the tabloid had broken into the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in its search for scoops.

Actor Hugh Grant and the Dowler family will be some of the first to give evidence Monday.

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