Gary North warns us:
If, on the Graduate Records Exam in economics, you are asked to write on essay on microeconomics and macroeconomics, you would be unwise to write down my definitions.
Microeconomics: The study of who has the money and how I can get my hands on it. Macroeconomics: The study of which government agency has the gun, and how we can get our hands on it.
He has more:
Macroeconomics rests on a series of assumptions, none of which is ever discussed in a first-year textbook on economics.
the primary assumption: two dozen individuals who have proven unable to make more than $60,000 a year in an unregulated free market possess the ability, when serving as members of a Congressional committee, to regulate a subsection of the economy that generates at least a hundred billion dollars a year.
secondary assumption, namely, that after a Congressional bill is signed into law, it will be enforced fairly and efficiently by salaried employees of one or more Federal agencies.
Finally,
The underlying premise of macroeconomics is that we can trust the abilities of Congressmen to pass legislation which tenured bureaucrats can and will administer fairly, coherently, and safely, so that the free market’s allocation principle of “high bid wins” cannot become the governing principle of economic distribution.
Yes, I’m feeling snarky.