It seems that you may not be able to leave home with it, after all. It’s not your life and it’s not your card any more. In a move to pull back from letting people have the card that DeNiro and lots of others carry, card-issuer American Express is recalling cards (video) it thinks it shouldn’t have issued to people who don’t have perfect credit and offering them $300 bucks if they turn their card in.

If you get an email from the IRS asking for personal information, recall that they already have it (unless you’re not paying taxes at all, in which case, stop reading this and go get a lawyer, stupid) on all those tax returns you’ve sent them over the years. The IRS email is almost certainly a phishing scam.

And, in the No shit, Sherlock! category, Ben Bernanke thinks we’re suffering in a significant contraction. Ya think?

Oh, and A.I.G. wants to borrow another $60 billion or so. I don’t think they know yet how much they really need. Remind me again why “too big to fail” is something that wasn’t killed at birth.