Indexes have rallied strongly, but investor fears persist. Here's how the investing landscape has been transformed in the past 12 months

More has changed for investors in the past year than the value of their portfolios.

By several measures, today's conditions in financial markets look quite different from those on Mar. 9, 2009, when the stock market finally stopped a 17-month slide that erased more than half the value of the broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.

Business is starting to creep upward at some small companies. And employees who have gone without raises or had their salaries cut over the past two years are hoping that more money coming in will lead to a raise in the near future.

But owners who need to rebuild their businesses may not be able to give those raises. They may need to put the revenue toward equipment purchases they've had to put off. Or they may need to travel to more trade shows to prospect for new customers.

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America's total debt load is on pace to top $13 trillion this year, and $22 trillion by 2020 -- and that's just the debt we're counting.

What's not being counted: potential debt bombs that don't get factored into most budget analysis.

When anyone talks about U.S. debt, they typically refer to two numbers.

The first is the debt held by the public. That's money owed to those who have bought U.S. Treasurys, most notably big bond mutual funds and foreign governments. Debt held by the public today is roughly $8 trillion and rising.

General Motors Co GM.UL will wind down its Hummer SUV line after failing to complete a deal to sell the brand to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, the automaker said on Wednesday.

GM had been trying to complete the deal by the end of February after reaching a definitive agreement last year to sell Hummer to Tengzhong, a little-known heavy machinery company based in Sichuan province.

But the two companies failed to win approval for the deal from Chinese regulators within the proposed time frame, Tengzhong said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

European finance ministers turned up the pressure on Greece to put its public finances in order, and refused to say how they would make good on a promise to rescue the nation if it can’t tame its debt. Greek bonds fell. “We certainly won’t let them off the hook,” Austrian Finance Minister Josef Proell said today before a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Brussels. Sweden’s Anders Borg called for Greece to take more “concrete steps to regain credibility in the markets."

Toyota is considering new incentives aimed at reviving sales as the troubled automaker works to repair its reputation following a spate of high-profile recalls.

"Toyota is reviewing all incentive options in consideration of current competitive market conditions and support of our dealers nationally," said Toyota spokeswoman Celeste Migliore.

Barclays Plc, the U.K.’s second- largest bank, soared in London trading after second-half profit more than doubled, lifted by investment banking and the sale of a fund management unit.

Net income for the six months to Dec. 31 rose to 7.5 billion pounds ($11.8 billion) from 2.66 billion pounds in the year-earlier period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on full-year results posted today. That beat the 6.72 billion- pound estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Barclays Chief Executive Officer John Varley and President Robert Diamond declined bonuses for a second year, the bank said. Barclays gained as much as 9.7 percent, the most since April 30.

A Toyota executive said the damage to the company's sales from its global recall for a gas pedal problem may be greater than previous recalls because of the unprecedented scale.

Toyota Motor Corp. Executive Vice President Shinichi Sasaki, who oversees quality control at the world's No. 1 automaker, acknowledged a perception the company was slow in responding to the problem of accelerators that could stick in the depressed position.

A few years ago, you took out a $300,000 loan for your business because you anticipated continued growth. But the economy soon fell apart, and so did your business. You can no longer pay back the loan, and the lender has filed a lawsuit against your company and you personally, threatening to seize your home, car, and cash in the bank.