Alan Greenspan

Here's one thing you haven't read about Alan Greenspan's book: It confirms the death of microeconomics.

That's obviously a bit too strong. As Steven Levitt and his blockbuster book Freakonomics and Tyler Cowen and his recently published and wonderful-to-read Discover Your Inner Economist have shown, there still is some role for microeconomic analysis when thinking about individual behavior, especially if the goal is to entertain and sell books.

But the second half of Greenspan's book, the part that, as CNBC's chief economics correspondent Steve Liesman first reported on the day the book was released, will have a far greater impact, seems to put to bed the notion that government policy is based on microeconomics. Macro appears to be, and over the past 40 years have been, much more important.

I'm just starting to understand why The Daily Show is the most-watched "news" program for college students (and, I hear, Wall Street analysts).

This morning's "Budget Battles" on nationaljournal.com can be found here.

Even a PR guy (my day job) like me is truly impressed by what Greenspan's publisher has been able to do to launch his book.

Front page stories in The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post on Saturday, a interview on 60 Minutes Sunday night, an interview on the Today Show on Monday morning that was simulcast and CNBC, a separate interview with CNBC senior economics correspondent Steve Liesman, a special with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC Monday night, and on and on and on and...