Personally I'd much rather hear about a potential layoff far in advance. It would give me a chance to prepare financially and start looking at new jobs.

Generally that's what severance time or packages are for.

I often hear 1-3 months of employment and or pay over the time, giving hopefully adequate time to prepare.

They have had "Lang Law" in France since 1981 apparently. This prevents individual booksellers from undercutting publisher prices and essentially establishes a price fix on books. It protects booksellers from big bookstores, which is basically the same issue that this article is talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Law

And it protects customers from getting too many books.

It's in the publishers' best interest to set a suitable RRP value. Too high and their sales would be eaten up by used copies (which aren't subject to this same law).

How would this play out in the current ebook marketplace? There are no used ebooks to put the squeeze on printed "new" ebook price.

ebook prices are moderated by the same price-demand rules as everything else. Availability of a cheaper hardcopy of the book vs. utility and desirability as an ebook; availability of a pirated version vs. the desire to own a legal copy; etc.