It looks like the things that are increasing the most in cost have government programs to give people money to pay for them. Maybe that's the problem! The free market has made TVs and even cars cheaper and better than ever.
People laugh at me when I tell them I switched "back" to Windows after decades of Unix and Mac programming. But it's a really good, productive platform. Microsoft really seems to be heading in the right direction now.
I hope .NET starts taking off on other platforms, too, because it really is a much better system than Brand "J".