Amid reports that some Los Angeles rental price listings have been exponentially hiked since the fires began, officials are threatening to prosecute “anyone who thinks they’re going to take advantage of the people who have been through this tragedy,” LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said on Sunday.

“It’s called price gouging. It is illegal. You cannot do it,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at another press conference over the weekend. His office has seen some “businesses and landlords … jack up the price,” of rent in the past week, he said, even though California’s anti-price gouging laws make it illegal for landlords to raise rent by more than 10% in the first 30 to 180 days after a disaster is declared.

“[The laws] are just being ignored right now,” Selling Sunset’s star realtor Jason Oppenheim told the BBC, saying an Oppenheim Group client who lost their home in the fires found a rental property that was previously priced at $13,000/month—they offered $20,000/month, and the landlord countered with $23,000 (a ~75% hike). It’s not the only example:

• A Bel Air home located in an evacuation warning zone was listed on Zillow this weekend at $29,500/month—an 86% hike from its September 2024 price, according to LAist.
• Another realtor raised an Encino listing from $9,000/month as of Jan. 3 to $11,500 after the fires started, according to the LA Times. The realtor then backpedaled to abide by the 10% rule, which she said she didn’t know about.

For context: Los Angeles rent was already high, averaging $2,820/month compared to $1,983/month nationally, according to Zillow.

To help residents, this weekend CA Governor Gavin Newsom extended the state’s disaster-triggered price gouging law to last through January 2026 for LA County and suspended some environmentally-friendly construction rules for wildfire victims. The road to rebuilding is expected to cost $50–$150 billion.—ML

Trump’s cabinet picks to take center stage. The Senate will hold hearings for President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominees this week in an effort to secure confirmations quickly after his inauguration. Today’s line-up includes former Rep. Doug Collins, who was tapped to be veterans affairs secretary, and Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army veteran who is Trump’s controversial pick to lead the Department of Defense. Among the high-profile choices who will also go before lawmakers this week are Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to head the Justice Department, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for the Department of Homeland Security.

Bill Ackman wants to make a “modern-day Berkshire Hathaway” with $1B deal. Hedge fund billionaire (and frequent main character on X) Bill Ackman wants a new role—namely, to become the next Warren Buffett by taking over real estate company Howard Hughes. Ackman, whose Pershing Square already owns 37.6% of the company, wants to buy the rest for $85 per share in a $1 billion deal. In a letter to shareholders, he claimed “with apologies to Mr. Buffett,” the tie-up could create a modern version of the famed investors’ conglomerate, by buying up other companies. But to do that, Ackman will have his work cut out for him: Berkshire Hathaway is valued at $956 billion, while Howard Hughes is at ~$4 billion, per Bloomberg.

Sonos CEO quits after botched app rollout. The audio company’s glitchy app update, which caused basic functions of its products to stop working, has not only frustrated its customers—now, it’s also led to a regime change at Sonos. CEO Patrick Spence, who had been at the helm for eight years, resigned yesterday, effective immediately, months after the rushed app changes released in May outraged Sonos product users. Sonos board member and interim CEO Tom Conrad acknowledged the app debacle in an email to employees, saying “this year we’ve let far too many‬ people down.”

People are pushing aside their old sweatpants for $150 Ultra-Soft Train Winter Knit pullovers. Lululemon and other retailers reported higher-than-expected Q4 sales yesterday, as shoppers spent more on clothes, shoes, and accessories during the holiday season—but it wasn’t enough to wow growth-hungry investors.

Cher Horowitz mindset: Mall darlings Lululemon, Abercrombie, and American Eagle bumped their forecasts for Q4, and Nordstrom raised its annual forecast after positive shopping data from the end of the year.

Credit card networks also noted a jump in clothes shopping. Visa said spending on clothes and accessories increased 5% this holiday season, and for Mastercard, online retail spending in the category surged 6.7%.

Wall Street was underwhelmed. Shares fell across the board for retailers yesterday, with Abercrombie down as much as 18%. Investors are concerned about where these somewhat modest sales increases came from, such as through discounted prices that got shoppers to buy merchandise but may eat into profit margins.

Keep an eye out for fresh ’fits. It's possible that everyone had the same new year’s resolution, but there’s another more likely driver behind the bursting interest in fashion: return-to-office mandates. Large employers, such as Amazon and JPMorgan, have instituted the controversial 5-day in-office workweek that calls for a capsule wardrobe.—CC

China is for the rest of the world what Home Depot is for dads—the place where it does a lion’s share of shopping.

After China grew its trade by 5% last year, the country’s trade surplus—econspeak for the dollar amount of exports minus imports—hit a record of almost $1 trillion, more than doubling from 2019. For comparison, Germany’s surplus peaked in 2017 at an inflation-adjusted $326 billion.

Boosted by government subsidies, China’s factories are flooding foreign markets with increasingly advanced products at bargain prices. “Made in China” stickers get slapped on a third of the world’s manufactured goods, per the UN Industrial Development Organization, including EVs and most of the world’s solar panels.

But don’t cue the confetti

China’s export boom belies the economic alarm bells going off within its borders:

• Imports grew just 1% last month compared to Dec. 2023, slowed by low consumer confidence after a recent housing market crash diminished family savings.
• Sluggish spending at home and discounts on exported goods caused China’s corporate profits to dip nearly 5% in the first 11 months of 2024 compared with the prior year.

And 2025 heralds more woes…if President-elect Trump follows through on his promise to impose punishing 60% tariffs on all Chinese exports.—SK

You may have relegated your 12-foot skeleton back to the garage—and finally finished the leftovers from that Costco bag of fun-sized candies—but for job seekers,but for job seekers, it’s still spooky season out there. That’s because they’re still likely to encounter “ghost jobs,” positions that companies advertise with no intention of actually filling. Last year, as many as one out of every five listings job hunters came across online may have been phantom ones, according to a data analysis by hiring platform Greenhouse, which found that 18%–22% of jobs posted in 2024 didn’t result in a hire.

Companies may post the jobs in good faith, or they may do it to look like they’re growing. Still, Greenhouse co-founder Jon Stross told the Wall Street Journal, “The job market has become more soul-crushing than ever.” But there may be some help on the way to try to save job candidates from writing unnecessary cover letters: Both Greenhouse and LinkedIn have introduced tags for listings they can confirm are real.