this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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There is one huge flaw with the idea, whose aims I fully support: banks regularly own hundreds and thousands of homes through foreclosures. They need to be able to take back a home, because that is what makes it possible to have cheap mortgages. Banks are in fact some of the largest home owners in the country.
What might work better is a sales tax. Everybody pays some godawfully huge amount of money, like 10%, when they purchase a home. You add a 0% sales tax for a primary residence (which of course needs a resident, which is a physical person), maybe a 5% tax for a secondary.
The main goal is twofold: make homes artificially expensive when purchase is not tied to occupancy and discourage short-term speculation. This saves the ability of banks to repossess a home (there is no sale here), and it allows for expansion of rental housing, since the tax is one-time and not recurring, meaning its impact is minimized with prolonged ownership.
The UK has a sales tax like that on home purchases. The problem is that it prevents people from selling houses when their kids move out. It's too expensive to sell the house and buy a new one, so you have a lot of older couples living in five bedroom houses that are empty.
I don't think the UK sales tax has an exception for primary residences, is that correct? That is the key ingredient that is missing: regular people should be able to buy and sell their homes to each other without a tax penalty, it's only when corporations buy and sell that it should apply (well, individuals, too, if they buy more than one or two).
Still better than one corporation owning 500 houses and profiting from them.
Edit the UK has a vacancy rate of zero of about 73% of corporate landlords, so your older couple could rent rooms to 4 lodgers and come out ahead.
They won't, which is a lifestyle choice.