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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 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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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

Greeks furious at the government’s austerity measures are vowing to turn out in force on the streets of Athens on the second day of a general strike, as lawmakers vote on the intensely unpopular new measures needed to secure continued payment from an international bailout fund.

Unions plan demonstrations, with one intending to encircle parliament in an attempt to prevent lawmakers getting into the building for the vote. On Wednesday, riots broke out during a protest march by more than 100,000 people.

The austerity bill won initial approval with a majority vote Wednesday, and lawmakers now vote on the details.

The measures include the suspension on reduced pay of 30,000 public servants and the suspension of collective labor contracts, and have angered even deputies from the governing Socialist party.

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Mexican authorities on Thursday raised to six the death toll from Hurricane Jova, which hit along the Pacific coast as a Category 2 storm, and warned the storm’s remnants could affect opening ceremonies of the Pan American Games.

The body of a man who apparently had been swept away by a river current was found covered with mud in the town of Cihuatlan in Jalisco state, said civil protection spokesman Juan Pablo Vigueras. The games are scheduled to open in Jalisco on Friday.

The five other victims drowned, were killed by mudslides or died in a collapsed house.

Rain from the remnants of Jova may change the open-air inauguration of the Pan American Games in the western city of Guadalajara, said Bernardo de la Garza, Mexico’s top sports official.

Heavy rain falling on Mexico’s west coast also may affect training sessions for the games’ triathlon, sailing and beach volleyball, he said. All three competitions are to be held in the beach resort of Puerto Vallarta just north of where Jova hit land early Wednesday.

Farther south, a low-pressure system continued to dump rain on southern Mexico and Central America, where it was blamed for the deaths of 15 people in Guatemala. Rains will likely continue during the next couple days as the system hovers over southeastern Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

Guatemalan Vice President Rafael Espada said four people are missing.

He urged Guatemalans on Thursday to use the country’s highways only for emergencies, saying several were damaged by the storm or are blocked by mudslides.

The storm damaged at least 2,000 homes, said Alejandro Maldonado, director of Guatemala’s disaster prevention agency.

Meanwhile, Tropical Depression Irwin was expected to weaken as it swirled over the Pacific off Mexico’s coast and was forecast to become a remnant low within 24 hours, the hurricane center said.

Irwin’s maximum sustained winds Thursday afternoon were near 40 mph (65 kph). The storm was centered about 145 miles (235 kilometers) west of Manzanillo, Mexico, and was moving east at 6 mph (9 kph).

The depression’s was predicted to begin curving away from Mexico by Friday morning and head back out over the Pacific.

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The Philippine president has announced a 72 billion peso ($1.66 billion) stimulus package to cushion the economy as Asian governments step up efforts to ward off the global fallout from Europe’s debt crisis.

President Benigno Aquino III said Wednesday that the world economic slowdown is already having some impact on growth in Asia, including the Philippines, and the government “is working overtime to make certain that we do what must be done to maintain our economy’s momentum.”

On Tuesday, Indonesia’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 6.5 percent to offset the impact of turmoil in financial markets and a slowing global economy.

Asia bounced back relatively quickly from the last global recession that was sparked by the 2008 financial crisis, helped in part by China’s massive stimulus spending. But some economists say the region is not as well placed to respond to a new slowdown because inflation is high and a lot of fiscal ammunition has already been spent fighting the last crisis.

Aquino said that his government’s additional spending this year includes 6.5 billion pesos ($149 million) for local infrastructure and poverty alleviation and 10 billion pesos ($230 million) to relocate squatters affected by floods and landslides Payday advance.

Another 5.5 billion pesos ($126 million) will be spent on national infrastructure projects and 6.3 billion pesos ($146 million) to upgrade two of metropolitan Manila’s light rail lines.

“This spending will provide added stimulus to our economy,” he said in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents Association of The Philippines. “The stimulus will be spent on projects that will have high macroeconomic impact, and will help the poor.”

The government’s economic growth forecast for this year has been lowered to a range of 5 percent to 6 percent from the 7 to 8 percent expansion projected in January. Aquino said the target for next year is also 5 to 6 percent growth.

The effects of the stimulus will be felt not just at the end of this year but also in the first half of next year, Aquino said. The spending is being funded from savings and existing loans.

Last year, the Philippine economy galloped to its highest annual growth in more than two decades, expanding 7.3 percent on strong foreign trade and election campaign spending.

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Unemployment has been stuck near 9 percent since the recession ended more than two years ago. The jobs report for September on Friday sent the clearest signal to date that the crisis will last through next year’s elections.

The pain isn’t confined to the 14 million officially unemployed Americans. Among those hurt by today’s 9.1 percent jobless rate are people forced to work only part-time and those who’ve given up looking for work in frustration.

Count many people with jobs, too. Their pay, home values and employment prospects have been diminished by the lack of good-paying, full-time work. Include, too, communities where services have been slashed, small businesses struggling with weak sales and young adults who can’t find jobs to repay student loans.

The ailing job market is both a symptom and a cause of troubles elsewhere in the economy _ from a depressed housing market to cash-short governments to sluggish consumer spending.

Here’s a look at the wide-ranging consequences of chronically weak job growth.

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WAGES:

A crippled labor market shifts bargaining power to employers. Workers have little leverage to seek raises. When adjusted for inflation, pay was nearly 2 percent less in August than it was a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.

“People are much more compliant and willing to take extra work assignments because they’re afraid,” says Carl Van Horn of Rutgers University’s Center for Workforce Development.

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GOVERNMENT BUDGETS:

High unemployment squeezes government finances in at least two ways. Lost jobs mean governments collect less tax revenue. And they have to spend more on unemployment benefits, food stamps and other social programs.

The federal government’s tax collections this year are expected to fall to the lowest level since 1950 as a percentage of the economy. More than 40 million Americans _ a record 1 in 8 _ are receiving food stamps.

Enrollment in Social Security’s disability program has shot up by more than 1 million people, or nearly 16 percent, since the recession struck in 2007. In part, that’s because those who can’t find work are seeking government benefits instead.

If the economy were strong enough to reduce unemployment to a healthy 5.2 percent, next year’s federal budget deficit would be one-third lower than forecast, the Congressional Budget Office said this week.

Worst off are local governments. They’ve been cutting services and jobs for the past two years. Over the past 12 months, localities have slashed 210,000 jobs.

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YOUNG PEOPLE:

Breaking into the job market is increasingly hard for high school and college graduates. Businesses aren’t creating many jobs. And workers who have jobs are holding on to them. That leaves young people with few openings to apply for.

To find work, new college graduates have to settle for lower pay and jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree. That’s painful for those who took on big debts to pay for their college education.

“Young people who enter the labor market under these conditions pay a wage penalty for quite a long time,” says Harry Holzer, former chief economist at the Labor Department bad credit payday loans.

College grads hired in 2009 and 2010 earned 10 percent less than those who found jobs in 2006 and 2007, before the Great Recession, the Rutgers researchers found.

And economist Lisa Kahn of Yale University found that young people who graduate in a poor economy will still be saddled with lower wages 15 years later.

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THE UNDEREMPLOYED AND THE HOPELESS:

In September, nearly 9.3 million Americans had to settle for part-time work even though they wanted full-time jobs. That was up 440,000 from August. An additional 2.5 million want to work but have given up looking. Add those part-timers to the workforce dropouts and the unemployed and nearly 26 million, or 16.5 percent, of working-age Americans want full-time work and can’t find it.

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BABY BOOMERS:

Aging boomers are less likely to lose their jobs than younger workers. But when they do, they have a tougher time finding new ones. Would-be employers tend to choose younger, cheaper applicants. Some fear that older workers will bolt for a better-paying job once they can.

In a survey of the unemployed, the Rutgers researchers found that 80 percent of those older than 50 have been out of work for more than a year. And half have been unemployed at least a year.

Many have drained their retirement savings and lack health insurance. Nearly half plan to apply for Social Security benefits earlier than they had intended to.

Peter Cohen, 59, a veteran Hollywood video producer, has been out of full-time work since October 2008. Cohen, who specialized in using Apple equipment as a producer since the 1980s, was shocked to be turned down recently for a retail job at an Apple store.

“The savings account has been depleted, and we are now living out of our stock market account, which might get us through another year,” Cohen says. “After that, it will be time to hit the 401(k), which might get us to Social Security.”

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SMALL BUSINESSES:

Unemployment, job insecurity and dwindling wages are preventing consumers from spending freely. Many big companies can turn to fast-growing markets overseas to compensate for slumping U.S. sales. But most small businesses can’t.

Small companies surveyed by the National Federation of Independent Business have cited weak sales, rather than perennial gripes like high taxes and burdensome regulations, as their No. 1 problem.

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POLITICS:

Among those sweating the jobs crisis is President Barack Obama. He’s up for re-election in just over a year. September’s 9.1 unemployment rate and tepid job growth suggest he’ll be presiding over an economy so weak it could feel like a recession. No president since World War II has faced re-election with unemployment this high.

“Until we see a consistent trend suggesting progress (on the economy), it’s going to remain the dominant issue and a pretty big negative for Obama,” says Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

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As interest rates on certificates of deposit continue their downward slog, annuities, money market accounts and even interest-bearing checking accounts are all emerging as attractive alternatives.

In the past 24 months, the amount invested in CDs nationally dropped nearly 30 percent, while those in locally based banks tumbled 40 percent. For the 75 banks based in St. Louis tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, CD deposits totaled $10.48 billion at the end of June, down from $17.6 billion when CD interest rates in mid-2009.

There’s no secret why: The national and local average for a 5-year CD this week came with a 1.26 annual percentage yield, below inflation and down from about 4 percent in 2008.

So what’s an investor to do?

Many investors are ditching CDs in search of better returns or investments that provide better liquidity, such as money market accounts. CDs have long been viewed as a relatively safe place to invest money without the volatility of stock market swings, as the funds are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. But CDs also come with a catch

A year after Rawlings lunged back into the football helmet business, the sports equipment manufacturer is gaining momentum.

Rawlings, based in Town and Country, is best known for its signature emblazoned on baseball bats and gloves. The company started manufacturing football helmets last fall after a 20-year absence. Now company officials say Rawlings is on track to capture between 6 percent and 7 percent market share in its first year, and its unit sales are triple what the company forecast a year ago.

“People respect the brand, and they know it,” said Mike May, spokesperson for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, a nonprofit trade group based in Silver Spring, Md. “They’re not some new kid on the block. It’s tough to penetrate any market when you have two established brand names, Schutt and Riddell, that have been around with football helmets for years. But it helps to have some established credibility on the street, which Rawlings has.”

Rawlings was founded in 1887 and was the first company to develop shoulder pads for football. But it stopped making football helmets more than two decades ago.

Mike Thompson, Rawlings’ senior vice president of marketing, said Rawlings spent nearly three years researching the market and developing its helmet before last year’s launch. “We’re far exceeding our expectations,” Thompson said this week.

Rawlings re-entered the market focusing on youth, high school, college and professional players, and started taking orders in March.

Rawlings is owned by consumer products conglomerate Jarden Corp., based in Rye, N.Y., a Fortune 500 company with $6 billion in sales last year. Many of Jarden’s brands