You are quite wrong. Companies are required to pay a prevailing wage. This wage is sometimes more than they want to be paying for that position! Also, there is additional cost associated with obtaining the visa, most of which must leagally be paid by the sponsor (ie, the company, not the foreign worker). And they are also required to cover the cost of transportation for the person back into their home country if/when they let them go.

This is NOT a cheap labor option - companies do this only if they very much want those individuals because of their exceptional skills.

I'm a big fan of the Prius. However, if you're in the city, why own? I drive the Prius, in addition to many other cars, through my local car co-op:

http://www.zipcar.com

This will work for people that need a car for short errands in Boston, New York, DC, and recently Denver. You reserve a car in advance by phone or by the web. The zipcar density in Boston/Cambridge is so high that I have never been unable to find a car nearby when I needed it.

It also looks like there are a few car co-ops in the orginal poster's area:

http://www.carsharing.net/where.html

While this is sounding like a bit of a love story, I should close by saying that I used to own a car in the city and the insurance payments alone were murder, (not counting the gas a maintainace costs). And every major car repair was the cost of a new bicycle, so now I just bike and zipcar everywhere.