It's the economy, stupid...

The economy recently has been booming along so well that this past election was an argument about how to spend the fiscal surplus. Stephen Harper comes to power at a bad time in the sense that, even though the unemployment rate is at a thirty year low and the stock market is hitting new records, he has to hope it is sustained over the next eighteen months since slippage will be blamed fairly or otherwise on him.

So could a recent dramatic slowdown in U.S. GDP growth mean that we are on the verge of a slowing economy, which will pull down both Stephen and George?