editorial report. we hook ahead to 2024 and a new set of challenges and opportunities for the country. i m edward lawrence in this week for paul gigot, and we begin with the u.s. economy which defied expectations in 2023 as inflation fell and recession fierce faded. now the santa claus rally in the stock market giving us another record close this week for the dow jones industrial average and the federal reserve signal rate hikes are done and cuts could be in store for 2024. let s bring in jason trennert, he s the chairman and ceo of strategists and investment strategy firm. jason, let s start overall here, we get this. you know, overall we get some the contrarians won in 2023. so people were projecting the most predictive recession in history, and it didn t happen. so is the recession then off the table for 2024? edward, it probably is. i will say that the recession didn t happen in 2023 partly because we ran a budget deficit of close to 6% of gdp, $2 trillion at full em