ogrammers and customer service representatives. In essence, the "new" human capital represents an avid consumer population which is more demanding and weary of time-consuming ordering and purchasing at retail stores. Human capital is part of today's microeconomics.
Until September 11, it made sense to look at the U.S. economy in terms of its alliance with, and dependence on the GDP, as well as the budget surplus amassed over the last several years which both was able to pay down the national debt and develop tax cuts for the American tax payer. Now, at least temporarily, the American economy must be looked at in two different ways: First, can and should it revert to its traditional policies? And, if not, what should be the new long-range outlook for achieving both a balanced budget and GDP growth?
In an economic millieu where "macro-" and "micro-" are meant to define the scopes of economic examination and forecasting, it might be an idea to set down some foundations on which the parameters of microeconomics are based.
To begin with, any economic system "must set goals of productionahow scarce resources are to be allocateda.how the results of production are to be allocated among the populationaand what provision is to be made for economic progressa" (Dewey, p. 3) Given these four basics, sometimes the borderline between "macro-" and "micro-" is blurred. "By common practice, the activities of the household, the firm, the labor union, and the industry are now consigned to the micro category, while the forces that affect the important aggregates of the economic system- income, consumption, investment, and over-all growth are placed in the macro category." (Dewey, p. 11)
Current assumptions of GDP, however, seem more
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