But with just a handful of shops left at the Warrenton Outlet Center, there are fewer reasons for St. Louisans to make the trek to this city, about 60 miles west of downtown.

The Gap Factory Outlet and Dress Barn have jumped ship, finding apparently sunnier pastures last year at a strip center in Wentzville. The Levi’s Outlet Store, G.H. Bass & Company, and the Famous Footwear Outlet shuttered their locations last month.

And the Nike Factory Store, one of the last major retailers left, is closing in April and moving to the Meadows at Lake Saint Louis.

Elsewhere around the country, many outlet malls continue to thrive, and developers are rushing to build more of them. But Warrenton’s outlet center, operating under an increasingly outdated model, never managed to reach its full potential.

Now the beleaguered center will suffer an ignoble fate shared by other retail properties on the decline: the auction block.

The 200,000-square-foot outlet center will be put up for sale in a three-day online auction starting Monday morning. The minimum starting bid is $375,000.

The listing at auction.com notes that the center was 35 percent occupied in November. But that was before some of the recent departures.

The center opened in 1993 during a national boom in outlet mall construction. It once boasted many notable stores such as Mikasa, Nine West and Jones New York — some names of which are still barely visible above vacant storefronts. At one time, it had upward of 45 stores. Now, only about 10 stores remain.

“Even a few years ago, it was still a vibrant center,” said Michelle Schlenther, Warrenton’s director of economic development. “People would come out and make a day trip out of it. The dad would go play a round of golf while the wife shopped.”

So what happened?

“It’s an older center,” said Linda Humphers, who tracks the outlet mall industry for the International Council of Shopping Centers as editor of Value Retail News. “It’s only 200,000 square feet, and it’s probably a little too far out of town.”

Older outlet malls like Warrenton were built about 40 to 50 miles outside cities because retailers objected to having discounted merchandise so close to their regular-price stores.

But that model has begun to change with newer outlet malls creeping closer and closer in. For example, two proposed outlet mall developments are duking it out to come to Chesterfield within a stone’s throw of Chesterfield Mall.

NOT A DESTINATION

Steve Etcher, executive director of the Boonslick Regional Planning Commission, said the Warrenton outlets never grew to be large enough to be a true shopping destination. A third phase for the center, which would have taken it to more than 100 stores, never materialized.

“You had drive-by shopping but not enough to sustain it,” he said. “It’s not a bad location — you’re right on 70, but it’s not necessarily destination. To me, Lake of the Ozarks is destination. But this ended up being more of an along-the-way thing.”

It didn’t help, he said, that ownership of the center changed hands several times. And then when St. Louis Mills opened in 2003, offering a mix of outlet and regular price stores, that took some wind out of Warrenton, too.

Schlenther also traced some of the decline to several years ago when a number of stores went bankrupt or underwent massive restructuring such as KB Toys, Liz Claiborne and Big Dog Sportswear.

“So a lot of what closed there closed not only in Missouri, but across the nation,” she said quick payday loan. “And it just happened that we had a lot of those in one facility.”

Things got worse when the property fell into receivership a couple years ago, Schlenther said. At that time, the owner was Ariel Preferred Retail Group, which had a portfolio of about seven outlet malls.

“Stores just don’t want to come in and put an investment in because they don’t know when it’s bought what the new owners are going to do,” she said.

Texas-based Woodmont Co. is the receiver that’s managing the property. An on-site outlet manager referred questions to Fred Meno, a Woodmont executive. Meno did not return requests for comment.

Despite the troubles at Warrenton, Humphers said the prospects for an outlet mall in Chesterfield are rosier because the developers behind both projects are large, reputable mall developers.

In November, Simon Property Group, the owner of St. Louis Mills, announced it was joining forces with Woodmont and EWB Development on that proposed outlet project to be called St. Louis Premium Outlets. The project previously went by the name Spirit of St. Louis Outlets.

The other proposed outlet center — Chesterfield Outlets — is being spearheaded by Taubman Centers. The city of Chesterfield has approved its zoning request. And its plans for a 472,000-square-foot upscale outlet center will go before the city’s architectural review board next week.

Aimee Nassif, the city’s planning and development director, said she’s expecting to receive the section plans from the other project any day.

“They are literally kind of racing to the finish line,” she said. “It will be very interesting.”

OTHER USES

But Donna Boehringer hasn’t given up on the Warrenton outlets yet. She has operated her Corner Quilt Fabrics store in the center for about seven years after moving there from another location in town.

The move was good for business. A billboard she has along the interstate also has helped. She estimated about 60 percent of her customers are from out of town.

“Quilters seem to have this sixth sense of quilt shops,” she said. “If there’s one around, they will stop by.”

Boehringer did have her worst year in sales last year, but she attributed that more to the economy than to less traffic at the center. She’s in the process of renegotiating her lease.

“My plans are to stay right here,” she said. “I’m trying to be optimistic because I’d like to see something else come in. But we’ll see.”

Jan Olearnick, executive director of the Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce, thinks the property holds promise for a mixed-use project. An education center, a health facility and a technology incubator are some of the ideas that have been thrown around.

“It would take a forward-thinking person to try and revive it, but we’re ready,” she said. “Warrenton is definitely a good location for any industry because of our proximity to I-70 and to the railroad — and even to the river.”

On top of that, the city recently got federal approval to build an interchange just west of the outlet center, making for easier access to the site. But the project’s funding source has not yet been determined.

In the meantime, other enterprises have been popping up in the region — though they are not necessarily retail.

A billboard next to the entrance to the outlet center advertises one of them a bit farther west: zip line tours.

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Eyeing the blank-paged journals, with prompts for parents and grandparents to reminisce about their lives, Laura Stude pondered a 21st Century alternative.

“Instead of writing something that no one could read or might get burned in a house fire, I thought ‘How cool would it be if you could put something online,’” Stude recalled.

The thought became a concept that Stude thought might appeal to appeal to the aging baby boomer population.

Last week, she decided to see if it had legs.

Startup Weekend, an event that has gained popularity at worldwide venues since the economy turned the mega-corporation world on its head, made its St. Louis debut a week ago tonight when 41 entrepreneurs brought an equal number of business proposals to a downtown incubator for information technology ventures.

Each arrived with a 60-second pitch outlining the strategies they envisioned as money-makers, the next social media phenomena or, in the case of one participant hoping to “create a better world through kindness and community,” a software application aligned with an over-arching goal of “changing the world.”

The proposals were put to a vote.

When the balloting was completed, teams headed by the 12 finalists - Stude included - adjourned to the conference rooms where they would spend nearly every hour of the next two days perfecting entrepreneurial ventures. Their ideas ranged from an application to synchronize smart phones with concert arena light shows to a software program designed to promote better childhood behavior.

It was Super Bowl weekend for would-be entrepreneurs like Alex Kliman, 26, sales representative by day and formulator of grand ideas by night.

“I’m one of those people who thinks they have a million dollar idea every time they wake up,” said the Dogtown resident, the creator of the pulsating “event-driven” smart phone program he envisions illuminating the concert halls and sporting venues of the future.

It became clear from the get go that time is the enemy at Startup Weekends: Come Sunday night, a panel of four judges would observe presentations from each team and select a winner based on originality, feasibility, marketability and, not least, financial viability.

The stakes were not high.

When I asked the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association executive who helped coordinate the weekend about the first place prize, Jay DeLong responded by patting me on the back.

OK, there was a bit more incentive than that.

But not much: The teams were vying for a break on the rent for incubator office space, gift certificates from downtown businesses and tee-shirts.

Still, the contestants went at it like a million bucks was on the line, working until midnight Saturday despite a schedule that called for adjournment in the early evening.

Most of the teams were comprised of total strangers.

Carl Foster of  Chicago joined forces with University City’s Stude because the idea he brought to the table - which didn’t muster enough votes - closely matched her online legacy book project.

With an eye toward the myriad obstacles standing in the way of successful start-ups, Stude assembled a crew capable of covering all the bases from software and website development to marketing to projected financial outcomes.

“Everybody brought a unique skill that moved the chains forward,” she said.

The team didn’t let her down.

They looked for ways to fine-tune the band-width to accommodate baby-boomers who prefer video over the written word business cards. They tweaked Stude’s four-minute presentation the judges and convinced the team leader to abandon her pet name for the project - “Time in a Bottle” - in favor of “StoryBucket.”

Laura Stude went before the judges shortly before 6 o’clock Sunday night.

“Do it before you croak,” she said, launching the presentation with the catch phrase formulated by the team barely an hour before. “Fill the bucket, before you kick the bucket.”

Supported by a PowerPoint presentation, she walked the judges through the various attributes of the project, in particular a process that is a marked upgrade over the arcane pen and paper.

The wait for the judges’ decision, slightly more than hour, seemed interminable for a 100-plus would-be entrepreneurs who’d spent the last two days burning through creative energy like coal.

Dragging out the tension a few minutes longer, the judges reviewed each entry prior to announcing the winners.

They praised StoryBucket, but advised that success rested on the ability to differentiate itself from Facebook, Flickr and other social media that lend themselves to story sharing.

It served as a hint of what lay ahead.

The winning team, “Analytic Just-Us” began the weekend as an amorphous proposal for a comprehensive database to provide background to attorneys preparing civil and criminal cases.

By Sunday the idea had evolved into an entry with the potential to analyze the decisions of juries and judges in every corner of the country.

“What Money Ball was for baseball this will be for lawyers,” predicted Andrew Winship, a St. Louis attorney and a member of the “Analytic Just-Us” team.

Though judges didn’t rank StoryBucket among the top five ideas, Stude remained upbeat. An idea born of happenstance during a shopping excursion had survived two days of intense scrutiny and readjustment.

Even more encouraging, Stude received word via Twitter following her presentation that an investor might be interested in helping her further pursue the StoryBucket proposal.

“If nothing else, it was good for affirmation,” said Stude, vowing, “this is just the start.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“It’s a real culture shock. After tax, $150,000 is not much. It probably won’t even pay for the private-school education tabs for their kids. It’s going to be a tough time of readjustment.” - New York compensation consultant James Reda on the hardships reduced bonuses incur on Wall Street executives.

Source: The New York Post

BY THE NUMBERS

5.6 million - Number of health care sector jobs the U.S. economy is expected to add from 2010-2012.

Source: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Projections

FINAL WORD

“I call myself frayed white collar - part of the privileged poor. I have a college degree, a career and an array of middle-class, working-class and more economically privileged friends; together we are a fairly good representation of the 97 percent, or maybe the 95 percent. And most of us are hard-pressed; even my teacher friends, making about $60,000 a year, are perpetually flat-lined economically, eking across each month’s finish line thanks to credit cards.” - Christopher D. Cook in an essay on the humility of applying for food stamps.

Source: Salon

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In what was seen as a blow for Germany’s push for tighter European integration, national sovereignty appeared to have won the argument Monday.

Over the weekend, Germany had made a pre-summit call to give a powerful European debt watchdog direct control over Greece’s budget decisions. Despite often stinging criticism over how Greece runs it financial affairs, having a foreigner directly run a nation’s budget found no takers among the other leaders.

Even Merkel’s staunch ally, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is so close that they have morphed into the diplomatic couple “Merkozy”, could not back her.

“We cannot put a country under trusteeship and run it from abroad. It would not be reasonable, not democratic, and, in short, not efficient,” Sarkozy said after the summit.

Going into the summit, German Economics Minister Philipp Roesler had suggested the EU should take over the “leadership and supervision” of Greece’s budget.

Athens is teetering on the brink of a disorderly default and is seeking a key agreement to get a second euro130 billion ($170.43 billion) bailout. The country has been surviving since May 2010 on an initial euro110 billion package of rescue loans from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

Greece must also cut its deficit further and push through painful public sector layoffs and sell off several state companies, and its partners are unhappy with the pace of action.

Still, a “Sparkommissar” in German_ or “savings Czar” _ was beyond the pale for Greece.

“Our partners do know that European integration is based on … the respect of their national identity and dignity,” Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos wrote in an angry retort.

“I am certain that the political leaderships of all European nations _ particularly bigger nations that bear increased responsibility for the course of Europe _ are aware of how friends and partners, who have joined their historical destinies, raise questions,” he wrote on Sunday.

Merkel got the message.

“I believe that we are having a discussion that we shouldn’t be having,” she said entering the summit.

Other European leaders have said that the Commission, the EU’s executive, needed the power to block bad spending decisions, but not only in Greece but also other highly indebted countries.

But taking over the leadership of budget went too far.

“It can only be put in place by the Greeks, in a democratic way,” said Sarkozy.

Ever since Greece threw the eurozone into financial turmoil in 2009 when it admitted previous governments had played down the amount of debt, it has been criticized as a profligate nation living off the wealthy northern nations.

It has since committed itself, under often intense pressure, to slowly move back toward a degree of fiscal discipline.

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Assets of the nation’s retail money market mutual funds fell $5.73 billion to $929.14 billion, the Washington-based mutual fund trade group said. Assets of taxable money market funds in the retail category fell $3.89 billion to $733.47 billion. Tax-exempt retail fund assets fell $1.84 billion to $195.67 billion.

Meanwhile, assets of institutional money market funds fell $8.95 billion to $1.750 trillion. Among institutional funds, taxable money market fund assets fell $8.13 billion to $1.653 trillion; assets of tax-exempt funds fell $820 million to $96.20 billion.

The seven-day average yield on money market mutual funds was 0.02 percent in the week ended Tuesday, unchanged from the previous week, said Money Fund Report. The 30-day average yield was also unchanged at 0 guaranteed online personal loans.02 percent.

The seven-day compounded yield was flat at 0.02 percent, as was the 30-day compounded yield at 0.02 percent, Money Fund Report said.

The average maturity of the portfolios held by money market mutual funds was unchanged from the previous week at 44 days.

Bankrate.com said its survey of 100 leading commercial banks, savings and loan associations and savings banks in the nation’s 10 largest markets showed the annual percentage yield available on money market accounts was unchanged at 0.13 percent from the previous week.

Bankrate.com said the annual percentage yield on six-month certificates of deposit was unchanged from the previous week at 0.22 percent.

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Italian ship operator Costa Crociere SpA on Friday put the figure at euro11,000 ($14,460) plus reimbursement for the cost of cruise tickets and extra travel expenses, seeking to cut a deal with as many passengers as possible to take the wind out of class-action lawsuits stemming from the Jan. 13 grounding of its Costa Concordia cruise liner off Tuscany.

But many passengers are refusing to accept the deal, saying they can’t yet put a figure on the costs of the trauma they endured. And lawyers are backing them up, telling passengers it’s far too soon to know how people’s lives and livelihoods might be affected by the experience.

“We’re very worried about the children,” said Claudia Urru of Cagliari, Sardinia, who was on the Concordia with her husband and two sons, aged three and 12, when it capsized.

Her elder son is seeing a psychiatrist: He won’t speak about the incident or even look at television footage of the grounding.

“He’s terrorized at night,” she told The Associated Press. “He can’t go to the bathroom alone. We’re all sleeping together, except my husband, who has gone into another room because we don’t all fit.”

As a result, she said, her family retained a lawyer because they don’t know what the real impact _ financial or otherwise _ of the trauma will be. She said her family simply isn’t able to make such decisions now.

“We are having a very, very hard time,” she said.

Costa’s offer, which covers compensation for lost baggage and psychological trauma, was the result of negotiations with several consumer groups who say they are representing 3,206 passengers from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the massive cruise ship hit a reef off the island of Giglio.

It’s not clear, though, how many of those passengers will take the deal, even though they’re guaranteed payment within a week of signing on.

In addition to the lump-sum indemnity, Costa, a unit of the world’s biggest cruise operator, Miami-based Carnival Corp., said it would reimburse uninjured passengers the full costs of their cruise, their return travel expenses and any medical expenses they sustained after the grounding.

Costa said the euro11,000 figure is higher than current indemnification limits provided for by law, and added that it wouldn’t deduct anything that insurance companies might kick in.

The deal does not apply to the hundreds of crew on the ship, many of whom have lost their jobs, the roughly 100 people who were injured in the chaotic evacuation, or the families who lost loved ones.

Sixteen bodies have already been recovered from the disaster and another 16 people who were on board are missing and presumed dead.

On Friday, the first known lawsuit was filed against Costa and Carnival by one of the Concordia’s crew members, Gary Lobaton of Peru. The suit, filed in Chicago federal court, accuses Carnival and Costa of negligence because of an unsafe evacuation and is seeking class-action status.

In Italy, some consumer groups have already signed on as injured parties in the criminal case against the Concordia’s captain, Francesco Schettino, who is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all those aboard were evacuated.

Schettino, who is under house arrest, deviated from the ship’s charted course to bring the Concordia closer to Giglio, gashing the hull on a reef a few hundred meters offshore. He has said the reef wasn’t on his nautical charts.

In addition, Codacons, one of Italy’s best-known consumer groups, has teamed up with two U.S. law firms to launch a class-action lawsuit against Costa and Carnival in Miami, claiming that it expects to get anywhere from euro125,000 ($164,000) to euro1 million ($1.3 million) per passenger.

German attorney Hans Reinhardt, who currently represents 15 Germans who survived the accident and is in talks to represent families who lost loved ones, said he is advising his clients not to take the settlement.

Instead, he along with Codacons is working with one of the U.S. law firms to pursue the class-action suit in Miami.

“What they have lost is much more than euro11,000,” he said of his clients.

But Roberto Corbella, who represented Costa in the negotiations with consumer groups that led to the offer, said the deal provides passengers with quick and “generous” restitution that with all the reimbursements could amount to some euro14,000 ($18,500) per passenger, even non-paying children.

“The big advantage that they have is an immediate response, no legal expenses, and they can put this whole thing behind them,” he told AP.

Melissa Goduti, of Wallingford, Connecticut, is trying to do just that but hasn’t quite been able to. The 28-year-old, who was traveling with her mother aboard the Concordia, says she can’t sleep at night _ “nothing works, even meds” _ and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

She said Costa had offered to pay for three to five counseling sessions for the PTSD, but that she’ll need more.

“That will not fix my problem,” she said in an email. “No one is going to get over this tragic event in 3-5 counseling sessions.”

Passenger Ophelie Gondelle of Marseille, France, said euro11,000 was paltry “especially considering the psychological” trauma she endured. She said she and her boyfriend are taking part in a French class-action effort underway instead.

Urru, the Sardinian mother of two, said her family was so traumatized by the grounding that when it came time to go home the day after, they flew to Sardinia from Rome rather than take the ferry because everyone was too terrified to go near a ship.

“It was impossible,” to go by boat, she said.

For the past several days, she has kept busy by preparing a box of goods to send to a resident on the island of Giglio who let her family and their friends _ a total of 10 people _ stay in a holiday apartment the night of the grounding.

Urru said she was sending seven sweaters and two blankets to make up for the things that her family took from the apartment, since they had nothing to guard against the freezing Tuscan chill. She said she was also sending the homeowner some cheese and salami and typical Sardinian sweets.

“Inside this apartment, it was so warm, so welcoming. They gave us everything that was inside the house,” Urru said. “They were truly, truly wonderful.”

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Mitt Romney released records this week that show he pays a tax rate of about 15 percent of his income. The relatively low figure is raising eyebrows because it’s on par with the rate paid by many middle-class households. That’s despite the Republican presidential candidate’s impressive income of $45 million over the past two years.

The disparity seems to fly in the face of the basic rule that tax rates move in tandem with wages; the more you earn, the more you pay. So Romney’s disclosure may stir suspicions that the system is tilted toward the rich.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Barack Obama focused on the issue by noting that a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households.

“We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes,” Obama said in a speech that repeatedly touched on the gap between the rich and poor.

On average, the wealthy pay taxes at a much higher rate than the middle-class individuals. But the primary reason that many pay a lower tax rate is that more of their income comes from investments, which is generally taxed at a far lower rate than wages.

Even if investment income doesn’t play a big role in your finances, understanding the basics of how tax rates work can help even the average wage earner save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year.

Here’s an overview of what you need to know:

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TAX RATE BASICS

Although it’s common to grumble about taxes, taxpayers often don’t know precisely what percentage of their income goes to the government. So an essential starting point is to look at how tax rates are applied.

Taxpayers can currently fall into one of six federal tax brackets depending on their taxable income. This amount includes items such as wages and distributions from retirement accounts. The tax rate for each bracket ranges from 10 percent to 35 percent. This is the most basic building block of tax planning because your taxable income can be reduced considerably by various credits, exemptions and deductions.

Here’s the breakdown of how much single filers would pay in federal income taxes depending on their taxable income for 2011:

1. 10 percent - income up to $8,500

2. 15 percent - over $8,500 up to $34,500

3. 25 percent - over $34,500 up to $83,600

4. 28 percent - over $83,600 up to $174,000

5. 33 percent - over $174,400 up to $379,150

6. 35 percent - amount over $379,150

Keep in mind that these are marginal rates, meaning your income is taxed in tiers. The first $10,000 you earn, for example, is taxed at a lower rate than the next $10,000.

So let’s say you earned $100,000, putting you in the 28 percent tax bracket. This doesn’t mean you’d fork over $28,000 in federal income taxes. It means that the amount you earn above a certain threshold is taxed at 28 percent. Your federal income taxes would actually be closer to about 22 percent of your income.

The current federal rates are set to expire at the end of this year. If Congress doesn’t act by then, the rates would revert to levels from before the Bush-era tax cuts, which ranged from 15 percent to 39.6 percent.

For now, federal income tax rates overall are near historic lows, says Joseph Rosenberg, a research associate at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He also said that nearly half of Americans do not pay any federal income taxes as a result of various exemptions given to those with dependents and limited incomes.

Federal income taxes are only a piece of the larger tax picture, however. Payroll taxes, which go toward Social Security and Medicare, eat up another 5.65 percent of wages. That rate returns to 7.65 percent if the payroll tax cut pushed by Obama isn’t extended past February.

State taxes are another factor and can vary widely, with rates ranging from as low as 3.4 percent in Indiana to 11 percent in Hawaii and Oregon, according to H&R Block’s Tax Institute. A handful of states, including Alaska and Florida, do not have an income tax.

THE EXCEPTIONS

Not all income is taxed at the rates outlined above. A key exception is any money earned from long-term investments, such as stocks, mutual funds and real estate held for at least a year. This income is classified as capital gains and is taxed at a flat 15 percent. That’s regardless of whether it’s $100 or $1 million.

“This is why someone who’s a millionaire might have an effective tax rate that’s lower,” said Gil Charney, a tax analyst with H&R Block’s Tax Institute. “A higher percentage of their income is going to be from long-term investment income.”

In Romney’s case, a chunk of his income in 2010 and 2011 came from Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded and managed between 1984 and 1999.

Bain still pays Romney “carried interest,” which is a classification of pay for managers of hedge fund and private equity firms. Critics say this type of compensation and should be taxed as salary at ordinary rates. But as it stands, carried interest is considered capital gains because it’s profit in excess of what investors paid into the fund, Charney said.

The tax rate for capital gains wasn’t always 15 percent. The rate has moved up and down through the years. In the 1970s, for example, the figure was close to 40 percent. And if Congress doesn’t act by the end of the year, the capital gains tax rate will revert back to 20 percent.

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REDUCING TAXES

Tax rates are subject to political influences. But there are a few standby strategies taxpayers can use for reducing their tax bill.

A key tactic is to reduce taxable income; this is why financial planners are such advocates of maximizing contributions to 401(k) accounts. Workers can reduce their taxable income by as much as $17,000 a year. For traditional individual retirement accounts, the maximum contribution is $5,000 a year.

Most large employers also let workers set aside up to $5,000 of pre-tax wages in a health care flexible spending account. This money can be used for a variety of medical costs, including co-pays, prescription drugs and supplies such as cold packs.

There are also numerous tax breaks for donations and education and health care costs that you may incur anyway.

Not everyone will be able to get their tax rate down to 15 percent. Yet there are numerous steps you can take to minimize your tax bill.

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On the front line of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, Athens is trying to get its private creditors _ banks and other investment firms _ to swap their Greek government bonds for new ones with half their face value, thereby slicing some euro100 billion ($130 billion) off its debt. The new bonds would also push the repayment deadlines 20 to 30 years into the future.

However, the main stumbling block over the past few weeks to securing this deal has been the interest rate these new bonds would carry. A high interest rate could buffer losses for investors, but would also require the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund to put up more than the euro130 billion in rescue loans they promised in late October.

In the early hours of Tuesday, politicians representing the 17 countries that use the euro as their currency drew a firm line on the Greek debt restructuring.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister who chaired a meeting of finance ministers on efforts to fight the crisis, said the average interest rate over the lifetime of the new Greek bonds must “clearly below 4 percent,” with an average rate of less than 3.5 percent for the period until 2020 _ far below the 4 percent demanded by the Institute of International Finance, which has been leading the negotiations for the private bondholders.

The caps on the interest rates underline that the eurozone and the IMF are unwilling to increase new rescue loans above the promised euro130 billion, even though Greece’s economic situation has deteriorated. After already granting Greece a euro110 billion bailout in May 2010, the eurozone and the IMF are threatening to withhold further funding for the country, which has repeatedly failed to hit budget and reform targets required in return for the financial aid.

The interest rate caps will also seriously test the willingness of private bondholders to agree to a debt deal voluntarily. IIF head Charles Dallara over the weekend had characterized the bondholders’ most recent offer as the best possible.

Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos was nevertheless confident that the two sides could find common ground.

“We have the green light from the Eurogroup to close the deal with the private sector in the next few days,” Venizelos said in Brussels.

The alternative to a voluntary deal would be to force losses on to investors _ a move that the eurozone has so far been unwilling to make. Officials fear that a forced default could trigger panic on financial markets and hurt bigger countries like Italy, Spain or even France.

Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager has said that a voluntary deal was not a must and that getting Greece’s debt down to a sustainable level was a bigger priority.

“Greece and the banks have to do more in order to reach a sustainable debt level,” he told reporters Tuesday as he arrived for a second day of meetings with his European counterparts. “We have to await the discussions about that because a sustainable debt level is absolutely a precondition for the next (rescue) program.”

Europe’s finance ministers are meeting in Brussels to discuss other elements of their efforts to fight the wider crisis _ including a permanent bailout fund for nations in financial distress and a balanced budget treaty.

Greek stocks opened lower Tuesday, shedding a collective 3 percent one day after optimism on the debt writedown deal sparked a 5 percent rally.

Meanwhile, updated budget execution figures released by the Greek Finance Ministry showed that despite massive spending cuts, the country’s fiscal deficit for 2011 was actually higher than in 2010.

Last year’s fiscal deficit hit euro21.72 billion ($28.27 billion) _ euro270 million ($350 million) more than in 2010.

Revenues were euro910 million ($1.18 billion) below target, but the ministry said this was offset by higher-than-anticipated spending cuts of euro896 million ($1.16 billion).

These figures are on a cash basis, and exclude some categories of spending taken into account in calculating the final budget deficit for 2011 _ which Greece has pledged to cut to about euro20 billion ($26 billion).

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Nicolas Paphitis in Athens, Greece, contributed to this story.

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But the Nasdaq composite _ a collection of technology stocks whose dot-com heyday was more than a decade ago _ has left them both in the dust.

That’s no surprise when you consider tech stocks took a licking last year. Tech companies tend to carry more risk _ a problem for the Nasdaq during last year’s market gyrations. As investors regain confidence in the economy, riskier plays are doing well.

But experts say the Nasdaq’s gains reflect long-term currents that could lift tech stocks through 2012 and beyond. Many companies put off replacing worn-out technology during the recession. To compete and survive, they need to invest in tech.

There’s also a growing global market for technology as more nations try to reduce labor costs by automating everything from factories to cash registers.

And the biggest tech companies face less competition these days when they try to acquire smaller companies. Many of their mid-sized rivals for those deals were weeded out after the dot-com bust and the financial crisis.

In the market for mergers and acquisitions, established players like IBM and Oracle can be picky about buying only those companies that will increase their earnings _ and probably their stock prices.

In other words, it’s not all about Microsoft-style titans and trendy social media companies like LinkedIn and Zynga. The Nasdaq contains more than 3,000 companies, many of them relative startups compared with the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

For the year _ just 13 trading days old _ the Nasdaq composite is up 7 percent, compared with 4.6 percent for the S&P 500 and 4.1 percent for the Dow.

“It looks like it’s going to be their year, or at least their month,” says Michael Vogelzang, chief investment officer at Boston Advisors LLC.

The Nasdaq sank 1.8 percent last year, while the Dow rose 5.5 percent and the S&P was flat. That left tech stocks relatively cheap, giving them more space to rise as the broader market rallied. Oracle is up 11.9 percent this year, Microsoft 14.5 percent.

Vogelzang and others say the tech rally has further to go.

“If you want to make your company more productive, you have to turn to the world of technology for that,” says Kim Caughey Forrest, senior analyst with Fort Pitt Capital Group.

She expects the S&P 500’s tech sector to outperform the broader market because of strong demand from U.S. companies, developing nations such as China and even cash-strapped European governments. As China’s banking system exploded to serve a growing middle class, banks there spent big on IBM technology, she noted.

“Nobody questions whether they need the latest and greatest technology anymore. They know they need to keep up their technology spending,” says Eric Gebaide, managing director of Innovation Advisors, a tech-focused investment bank and strategic advisory firm.

Gebaide and others mentioned many companies’ efforts to move their computing and data storage off-site _ trends known as “cloud computing” and “virtualization.” Long-distance computing is cheaper, but it requires technology.

But why are tech stocks rallying now? The cloud computing transition has been under way for years, and spending by companies has driven much of the U.S. recovery since the economy emerged from recession in June 2009.

It’s all about the investment cycle, says Jack Ablin, chief investment officer with Harris Private Bank. He says investors are finally willing to “flex their speculative muscles in a market that isn’t falling apart in the way they feared last year.”

Last year, some of the best-performing stocks were consumer staples and utilities _ lower-risk industries where demand is consistent even the economy is slow. This year, utilities in the S&P are down 3.7 percent, while tech companies are up 6 percent.

The move out of so-called defensive stocks, the ones you want to own in a slow economy, is a sign that investors are willing to embrace risk again.

“You’re getting this big market rotation,” Vogelzang says. “People made money last year in the boring, stable industries, and they’re saying, `Hey, I better get on this economy train while I can.’”

Tech companies learned hard lessons from the dot-com bust of the early 2000s and the 2008 financial crisis, says Gebaide of Innovation Advisors. They hold more cash than most types of companies and carry less debt. That leaves them less vulnerable to bankruptcy or a loss of investor confidence.

Given its twice-stung discipline, tech is positioned to drive the economy _ “perhaps the best it has been as a sector in the past 20 years,” Gebaide says.

The biggest threat to the industry, Gebaide says, is a slowdown in the early investment that helps startups grow into viable companies. Those early dollars used to offer massive returns to savvy investors when a good pick went public.

Today, the upside for venture capitalists is limited because far fewer companies are going public in big stock offerings. The bar is much higher after dot-com era debacles like Pets.com. Before underwriting a deal or buying chunks of stock, banks and investors want to see millions in annual revenue and established customer bases. It’s tough for younger tech companies to meet those standards.

Peter Falvey, managing director of Morgan Keegan Technology Group, says there’s plenty of capital, entrepreneurship and good ideas to keep companies’ bottom lines _ and stock prices _ rising.

Falvey’s group specializes in tech mergers and acquisitions _ the kinds of deals that allow IBM or Oracle to bring a small competitor’s product to a wider audience and add to their own earnings. Last year was the best for M&A in his group’s 11-year history, and this year’s deal pipeline already is stronger than last year’s was at this time, he says.

A company like IBM “has huge amounts of capital and a global customer base, plus complete hardware-software services,” Falvey says. “Once you put a small company into that machine, IBM can do really well with it.”

The industry’s earlier downturns also helped big companies by weeding out smaller players. The number of publicly traded tech companies has decreased by a third since 2000, Gebaide says. Now the big dogs can pick and choose more carefully, acquiring only businesses that are almost certain to increase their profits.

To be sure, high-tech companies are higher-risk investments, and they could lose value quickly if the market tanks because of a debt catastrophe in Europe or something unforeseen.

“People love tech until we get an economic shock, or negative economic statistics start to come out,” Vogelzang says. “Then all of a sudden, people will say, `Whoa, I need to go buy some utilities again.”

But investors should take tech’s success at this stage as a promising sign, says Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist with Schaeffer’s Investment Research. He says higher-risk bets like tech stocks tend to rise as the market enters a phase of long-term growth.

Housing, tech and small-company stocks all have risen faster than broad indexes since October, Detrick says. Those sectors are sensitive to improving economic data, he says.

“When you start to see tech taking charge, that’s definitely a potential step in the right direction for future gains, potentially for the whole year,” Detrick says. “Those are the sectors you want to see lead a bull market.”

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