I like the idea of a vacancy tax

Upsetting. I was reading about small boutique-style business owners in Toronto being forced out because of high rents. In one story a local neighbourhood cafe and pastry shop shut down after her building was sold to a new owner. Their monthly lease was $3,000. The new owner came in with a new lease, charging $6,300 a month. That's just greed. There is a city in the U.S. -- I forget where exactly -- that passed a new law for a vacancy tax. If you own a building and set the rent so high that your spaces are vacant, they add 10 per cent to your property tax. I like that. If you're so greedy and set your rental rate so high that no one can afford it, then you cannot claim it is the market rate. So pay the vacancy tax or set your rent at a rate that businesses can afford.

Olympics will be different ...

Not sure if you've had the chance to look ahead, but the upcoming summer Olympic games in Paris are sure going to be different. For starters there will be no opening ceremony in a big stadium like most of us are used to seeing. Instead, we will see things happening on the Seine River in the heart of Paris. The Seine is also site of the opening ceremony on Friday, where some 100 boats carrying tens of thousands of athletes and performers will glide down a 3.7-mile stretch of the river as spectators gather on the river banks.

So that will indeed be interesting to watch. There is also an olympic surfing event. But that won't be on the Seine. No, the surfing will be done in a tiny little part of the South Pacific Ocean ... off the coast of Teahupo'o, a small village in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti