Thanks for the explanation, skeletonjelly. I think the reason I misunderstood is that I don't hang out on the Internet enough: a friend explained to me that "This." and "this times a thousand" are Internet slang that mean "I agree" (the second, presumably means something like "On a scale from 1 to infinity my agreement level is 1000." :). As far I know these expressions aren't used verbally, which would explain why I took it literally.

It means repeat it a thousand times for emphasis.

You're getting downvoted because the poster was referring to the gravity/importance of the message.

We don't all have English as our first language, and there's no problem with that. I'd have replied exactly as you did if I thought he literally meant "this times a thousand"

I included an extra bit of improvement to deal with inflation rates.

LOL, apparently sarcasm and witty banter is not HN forte :P