You know, I live very close to Lordstown, Ohio, which is where the GM plant is. One of the best kept secrets in this country, is how much does it really cost to build a car? Even the big Hummers and such can't cost GM more than 10,000-15,000, yet they sell these things for the cost of my house. Yet, people flock to own one, cause they have to have the newest thing. Then you factor the cost of insurance, and gas, which is almost $2.00 a gallon here, and you reach a point that I could never get to. How many of those people that said they are gonna downgrade drive one of these, or some other big SUV that costs just as much to buy and maintain? I'm glad the OP decided to downgrade his auto, I think that's something we all should do( I drive a 94 Saturn), but instead of looking at the cost of living as a whole, and the inflation of a gallon of milk ( almost $3.00, which never would have been believed a few years ago), a loaf of bread ($1.29 as opposed to .69), they choose to oppose a company that has decided that they need to recoup some money they have laid out: for satelittes( 4 in 2 years at a cost of billions), all of the above mentioned "freebies", which do add up across the board, and new programming that's coming down the pike.
Is it gonna break us? No, and I understand that's not the point. But, at the same time, nothing is ever gonna stay the same, at this point in time, and the time to come. It could be alot worst, they could raise prices every year, as cable does, but 3 in 10 years is not a bad history.
And no I won't go back to cable, Directv is still better, but these $2.00 and $3.00 yearly increases need to go back down. Or pretty soon it will be harder to tell a cable bill from a satellite bill.
