[edwest2]

Chris,

My employer has me buy so-called "forever stamps" from the post office before the end of the year. He knows the average price increase will be 5%.
And UPS has regular increases every year. After negotiating a very favorable contract, profits went down and 12,000 employees were let go.

In 2007, my company could send pounds of books to Australia for little money, but we woke up one day to find out the U.S. Post had put an end to Surface Mail, citing rising costs to them. We lost 99% of our foreign customers overnight. It was around this time that ebook readers were appearing in stores everywhere.

I even read, around that time, that such readers were popular gifts in the UK but almost no one used them. They just sat in their boxes. It is quite clear that those who actually run things, meaning the wealthy, want us all to stop buying printed books and magazines outside of our own countries.

The funny thing is I can buy books from Germany and get shipping rates I can afford.