Remember Steve Case? He's the guy that used to send you diskettes in the mail to get you to sign up for America Online so you could dial-up to the Internet. Then, in January 2000, he sold AOL to Time Warner (TWX) -- ultimate parent of DailyFinance -- in a $166 billion deal. On Dec. 9, Case's mutated creation, AOL, will become an independent company again.

But Case has moved on since 2000. And Wednesday, he scored a smaller financial victory when he sold Revolution Money to American Express (AXP) for $300 million, according to the The New York Times. Revolution Money lets users pay for things online using a Personal Identification Number with cards that lack names or account numbers. Compared to American Express, it's a lower cost, more secure way to pay.

Western Union (WU) is expanding into the business of prepaid debit and credit cards, and Wyclef Jean is selling them softly with his song and his star power. Jean, the Grammy-winning rapper and former Fugee, is helping the money-sending service launch a co-branded prepaid Visa gift card, just in time for the holidays, tapping his appeal as a humanitarian leader to solidfy Western Union as the remittance leader among immigrants, who often send money home during the holiday season.

The U.S. Immigration Department estimates that worldwide remittances total more than $126 billion.

On Wednesday morning, during Time Warner (TWX)'s third-quarter earnings conference call, chairman Jeff Bewkes said, "We'll continue to take a look at non-strategic and less profitable titles."

Apparently, one of those non-strategic titles is Fortune Small Business. A Time Inc. spokesman confirms to DailyFinance that the Fortune spin-off is suspending publication.

The news comes just as the publisher embarks on a fresh round of job cuts aimed at saving $100 million in costs. Between 400 and 500 jobs will be eliminated, according to The New York Times, only a year after the company shed 600 workers.

Don't look for American Express (AXP)'s better-than-expected third-quarter results, announced Thursday, to presage a turnaround for other big card issuers. Most are getting socked by mounting loan losses, as cardholders contend with rising unemployment and falling home prices. And as consumers deleverage, they're spending less on credit cards and paying down balances, which means less revenue from interest and fees.

It's a different story for American Express. For the fifth straight month, the company wrote off fewer bad loans to cardholders in September. What's more, purchases on its charge cards -- which must be paid off at the end of every month -- are growing faster than those on its credit cards for the first time in at least two years.

American Express Co. reported its eighth straight quarter of falling profits on Thursday as consumers spent and borrowed less.

However, while the New York-based credit card company reported a 22 percent drop in earnings, it said there are signs that the decline in spending could be stabilizing and the rise in loan losses easing.

Investors viewed the report with caution, sending the stock down 34 cents to $36.10 in after-hours trading. Shares had gained $1.34, or 3.8 percent, to close regular trading at $36.44 before the report's release.

If you're feeling like a character in a Southwest Airlines commercial -- that is, you "wanna get away" -- take heart: Travel expenses will drop this month and stay low into early 2010. It won't stay that way for long, though. By the end of 2010, it'll cost more to fly to your destination -- but on the plus side, it will be cheaper to stay there once you arrive.

"Considering airfare, hotel and ground transportation, we expect the average domestic business trip to increase 1.2 percent, or $13, to a total of $1,080," American Express Business Travel VP–general manager Hervé Sedky said in a statement about its 2010 travel forecast. Additional fees could increase the cost of any trip by as much as 15 percent, Sedky said.

In what could become a trend-setting move, American Express (AXP) announced Wednesday that it will eliminate all monthly fees on its gift cards. Prior to this decision, gift card holders were charged $2 per month after the first 12 months of use. American Express gift card users will still have to pay purchase charges of between $2.95 and $6.95, as well as transaction fees each time their cards are swiped.

Other gift card issuers may follow American Express's lead, but even if they don't do so voluntarily, by of August 2010, they won't have a choice. The Credit Card Act of 2009 limits banks and retailers from charging inactivity or service fees unless a card has been dormant for at least 12 months. The law also mandates that cards can't expire until five years after their purchase date. Congress is thinking of moving the full implementation of the law to December 1. So American Express is just moving to make the changes in time for the holiday shopping season. I expect others will quickly follow suit.

Companies feeling flush enough to send their employees on business trips have been doing so on the cheap in 2009. Fares in premium classes have tumbled in tandem with passenger traffic, giving corporate travel departments great deals on the best seats at the front of the plane. A British Airways sale this summer let business-class travelers fly round-trip from San Francisco to London on the serene upper deck of a 747 for just over $3,000, more than half off the usual premium fare.

But the cheap corporate travel bonanza is coming to an end, says a report Wednesday from American Express, which operates one of the world's biggest travel agency networks. Amex (AXP) sees prices on long-haul domestic and international business-class flights originating from the U.S. rising anywhere from 3 percent to 8 percent in 2010, "as the world begins to show signs of emerging from the recession."

Oklahoma small businessman Willie Rosseett was recently stunned when he learned that Discover Financial Services Inc. (DFS) had canceled his credit card. "We have never been late and always paid them more than the minimum," said Rosseett, who owns ARDCO, a maker of circuit boards. "There is nothing I can do. I feel very helpless."

Rosseett, whose case is being reviewed by Discover, said he is current on his credit card bills. He's not the only one in a bind. Anecdotes about credit card companies cutting credit card limits even for prime borrowers have abounded in the media. The situation is causing a serious problem for companies across the nation. That's because credit cards are a common way for small businesses to fund themselves.

After buying large when the stock market tanked, Warren Buffett now thinks its time to pull back on buying stocks. He's cleaning out some dead wood and replacing it with corporate and government debt rather than new stock purchases. Even though the economy is on the mend, Buffett is concerned that it is still weak.

That's a very different tune than he was singing last year when he invested billions in Goldman Sachs (GS), General Electric (GE), American Express (AXP), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC) and U.S. Bancorp (USB). Many of his picks got bailouts from the government, and Buffett benefited from the help, along with all private investors who did the same. If his picks pan out, his payoff could be tremendous.

In the final quarter of 2008, amid lingering excitement from the presidential election and continuing worries about the economy, a highly significant historic moment quietly came to pass: credit cards began to die.

While it would be months before the controversial, much-maligned C-CARD act would place wide-ranging limits upon card issuers, many Americans began their own battle against the card companies. Rather than reaching for Visa (V) or American Express (AXP), they increasingly paid with debit cards.

The $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson set up in October 2008 to buy financial toxic waste, has made the U.S. a $4 billion profit on $240 billion that it invested in hundreds of banks. Never mind that TARP has not purchased any toxic waste. The TARP's yield so far is about 15 percent annualized -- roughly triple the five percent expected last October.

The source of these profits has mostly been so-called warrants, which are essentially options to purchase common shares at a low, predetermined price. Since that price is much lower than the banks' current market prices, the U.S. has been able to negotiate much higher prices for the warrants from the banks that took TARP money.

Some of the companies making major headlines today:

Procter & Gamble (PG) may be selling its prescription drug business for $3 billion to Warner Chilcott Ltd. (WCRX), Warner Chilcott Ltd, a specialty drug maker, sources familiar with the matter told different news agencies. The deal may be announced as soon as Monday.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) holds a weekly meeting of its research analysts where they offer trading ideas that are given to top clients, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Sunday, which Goldman claims do not give anyone an unfair advantage.