I personally doubt that the drop in volume is all that much related to prices. If they cut the price of a first-class stamp in half, mail volume would not go up much, because what we mail vs what we call/e-mail/fax/whatever is almost always based on capabilities, not cost. Likewise, if the price of a first-class stamp went up by 50%, I really don't see the extra 22 cents (or whatever it would be now) influencing all that many people to stop sending mail. A letter is already vastly more expensive than an e-mail. It seems to me that those items which are being mailed are those items which more or less have to be mailed.