Will someone teach me the basics of economics?

[vanguard96]

Micro-economics focuses on the aggregate supply and demand curves.

The aggregate supply curve is based on 'the theory of the film.'  (not my favorite term)

Also, I disagree that the role of the Federal Reserve proposed by Monetarists is the same as that advocated by classical economics.  For instance, as far as I know, classical economists advocate for the Gold Standard while most Monetarists don't.

If you have a good teacher and are interested, you should ask that teacher to provide some material on the back and forth arguments between John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman during the 1960s and 1970s. 

Both of them had PBS programs in the late 1970s, probably the last time academic economists of the day were household names.

Galbraith, as the first article points, out was regarded more as a social commentator or economic historian though than as a respected economist by his peers.

As far as I know, there really isn't a second level macro economics course, but most of the higher level macro economics courses are focused on a specific topic that are largely based on macro economics (labor economics, money, banking and financial institutions, environmental economics...)

Behavioral economics is likely largely a followup to micro economics as many of the concepts in behavioral economics challenge many of the assumptions in micro economics (economic actors make rational decisions.)
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I think you meant 'theory of the firm', right?

I majored in econ and at the time we did not cover environmental economics - that's a more recent interdisciplinary development. Our school was most focused on the data driven economics, finance, and statistics that was more popular at places like Harvard and MIT rather than Friedman's Chicago school. We covered only a little of the classical economists. I don't know if there was a course at the time on the history of economics. I don't remember a specific separate course in the department covering the 'great books' of economic theory either. We did read a bit of Adam Smith, Locke, Keynes, Galbraith, and unfortunately Paul Krugman.

Of course Friedman's Free to Choose book with his wife became a 10-part series aired on PBS in 1980 with discussions from many public figures of the time from many different fields - national and local government, professors in economics, social sciences, business and labor leaders, and for me two other considerable figures in free-market Friedman inspired economics - Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. The first half of the video has a video lecture where Milton is discussing education or welfare or some broad topic - traveling round the world to Hong Kong, India, Japan, and the US. Then they have Milton, a moderator and few guests. Great format.

Even if one does not agree with Friedman his straight ahead style of speaking is very clear & confident. Amazingly he did not regularly use the Leonard Reed "Pencil" speech from the video. Maybe since it was not his but it's a great way to look at how many factors go into making all the things in our lives.

I would have loved to have him for a high level econ course - no easy A that's for sure.

I highly recommend both the series and the book. Of course it comes at a time of stagnant growth and high inflation - a much different situation than now - and it is valuable as both a discussion on economic topics and a historical view of the late 1970's when it was filmed.

Amazingly at the same general time period Friedman and Ayn Rand both appeared on Donohue (separately of course). I could not imagine something like that nowadays.