Today's Outrage: American Express Not so Plum

One of the reasons so many Americans are struggling with their credit card debt is because of rising unemployment. So what do creditors like American Express (AXP) do? They put more people out of work.

AmEx announced today that it plans to fire about 4,000 workers on top of the 7,000 job eliminations announced in October.

The market will no doubt be pleased with the news. It's good to see the company taking the necessary steps in this challenging environment and all that. The market is myopic that way -- it cheers every job cut and than jeers at rising unemployment rates.

I don't remember what the market said when AmEx started expanding into different types of cards in an effort to grab market share from Visa (V), Mastercard (MA) and Discover(DFS) or the battle for rewards cards with issuers like Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase(JPM), Bank of America (BAC) and Capital One (COF).

That was probably considered a good thing at one point, perhaps not so good now.

Apparently the rainbow of cards concept didn't work out too well, so now AmEx is trying to save its way to higher profitability.

Not that the folks at American Express didn't pick good colors -- beyond the classic "green" card, there's the "Gold" and the "Platinum" of course. And don't forget the "Blue," the "Clear" and the "Plum." If color is not your thing, AmEx also offers the TrueEarnings Card from Costco, the Delta SkyMiles card and the Starwood Preferred Guest card.