Disclaimer: I've been boycotting Sony products sine the 80s when they screwed me over on my first CD player, and refused to honor a $50 coupon for free music because I was "outside the continental US".

Let's not pretend there's some evil plot to profit off of Whitney's death when it would easily be attributed to something much simpler. Without additional evidence you can't jump to the conclusion that it wasn't just an automated price increase based upon the increased demand. That hardly takes any human intervention. Now we can all pile on and hate them for a lot of things, but the price rise isn't enough in this case. Even if they withdraw the increase, I'm certain many of you will still be claiming that they only did so under pressure...it's a no win situation for them now.

I only mentioned the reassessment, which was not during the downturn, because you said something about disputing them if they're inaccurate in your prior post. That was back around 2004-5. I've still been unable to get any kind of explanation from the county.

Nice explanation, but not how it works here. Our assessed and taxable is the same here.

FWIW, I did have to go and get them to reassess, because they had my home completely incorrect in their records. It was showing me with a finished basement, brick exterior (we're stucco, so obviously nobody ever actually saw the place), and a few other items.

Unless that grows, and there's no indication that it is...my point still stands.

Not gonna happen in our lifetime in the U.S. (not assuming you live here). At least not unless a very significant portion of the population is out of work, and lost their homes, and that's just not the case. To paraphrase you...

The wealthy, were they wise, would do nothing different until then, or it's a waste of their assets.

Can we please stop with the " The "conservatives" (teabaggers) " and " the liberals want " bullshit. People aren't all in one bucket. This isn't the NFL, where you're on one side or the other and we can only root for one team. There are many issues, and we don't all fit into these stovepipes categories. Maybe if we started focusing on the issues instead of who's on what side, and the name calling, we might just get something accomplished.

Not meaning to pick on you in particular...I see this all over Slashdot, and yours was just a convenient post to respond to.

Another problem is that those $22,350 would go a lot farther in Kansas than in NY City, D.C., or LA. Does HHS even take location into account?

When discussing "wealth", location needs to be part of the formula. Avg. families in my area make over $100k annually, and housing prices (and other expenses) match accordingly. While those people might be considered upper middle class in Mississippi, they're barely making ends meet here in VA.

And in areas like Fairfax Co., Virginia, where my property taxes continued to rise during the housing downturn, even though my property assessment decreased by over $100k. Tell me how that works.

Yeah, that's happening, but is not the majority situation. Those of us who got 30 yr fixed loans are mostly in good shape. Those who got in over their heads with balloon loans are mostly covered by life insurance anyway, unless they got foreclosed on, in which case, the kids weren't getting anything to begin with.

Like Chicken?