> The whole U.S. is established on the idea of God and religion

I am not sure what you mean by this, but I'd like to disagree with how you have framed it.

In its essence, your comment is factually incorrect, but I will concede that such notion may be derived from observing elements of the culture and government as we know them today (e.g. notes on currency, addition of "Under God" to Pledge of Allegience). Without a doubt, that religion or concept of a God hold strong and there's a variety of individuals and organizations pushing for its inclusion in government operation and its laws.

It has not been established on the idea of God and its religion however (by the way, which religion do you mean), see separation of church and state: http://nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm.

> tells you to pray towards said imaginary person and completely disregards science in favor of what someone wrote on paper 1500-2000 years ago

While science cannot prove nor disprove existence of God, while there's a conservative religious following to discredit or "adjust" science to further its own goals, it is factually disingenious to suggest that Christian faith commands to completely disregard science in favor of some text.

It is sad, however, that what the evangelical conservative Christians do is to promote this type of interpretation among non-Christians, which affects you, judging by your comments.

Please do not judge the faith alone by standards of a vocal activists of an organized church/religion, same as do not fall into the trap of believing that any experiment could be called "science" even if it's fabricated for a different purpose than pursuit of truth or expansion of knowledge.

... and they will have a chance to witness Vladimir Putin slay the beast with his own bare hands wearing nothing but military trousers.

I am curious what country you speak of.

There are three countries I know for certain that do not apply to what you suggest (Poland, Czech Rep., Slovakia).

It's not just a Web site and few clicks - it's multiple trips, appointments that span over multiple days ("come to your appointment between 7:30am and 4:30pm on day X. If you will not be seen, come day 7:30 and 4:30pm on day X+1), and lots of paperwork and waiting JUST to talk the the consul.

Then there's waiting for a decision and dealing with denials (it is almost as if consul's job is to block as many applications as possible).

I would, on the other hand, agree that bribery is - and has been - rampant for many years, it's just out of sight.

Also, consider Lenovo - my experience over last 3 years has been very positive. This also includes hardware support and replacement. They also do have very aggressive discounts; they will even exceed what Dell offers you if you share the info with them.

As someone else mentioned, consider terminals (Asus/eePC) or Citrix. Less components = less maintenance. Sure, it might not scale to run Windows 9 or MS Office 2019, but most entry level machines won't anyway.

Make that two people in the country who pays use tax.

I guess it's somewhat of a consolation that we aren't alone.

Agreed in terms of cost of goods, but do not forget that there is time involved in grabbing a box, putting the game in a box, putting packaging material in, printing packing slips/labels, sticking on the labels... then there is the cost of tools to make this process more effective, cost of management, and there are also minimum wages to pay for the person who does this work.

Also, there are days when there is only one order per day and the person may not pay for his/her time by packaging the boxes.

SO - for a small operation, I would generally agree with you that difference between actual ship cost and charged shipping is profit. For larger operations (hundreds or thousands of daily packages/orders) often only fraction of the difference is profit.

Note: I work for a fulfillment company that packages and ships goods.