Principles of Macro

I was rather surprised when I read this: 

This spring I have a new assignment: to teach Macroeconomics I for graduate students. Ordinarily this course is taught by someone who specializes in macroeconomics; and whatever topics my popular writings may cover, my professional specialties are international trade and finance, not general macroeconomic theory. However, XXX has a temporary staffing problem, which is itself revealing of the current state of macro, and I have been called in to fill the gap.

This spring I am actually going teach Principle of Macroeconomics to US and other international students visiting Italy. My professional specialization indeed is in international trade. The LDM, where I'll teach, actually had a temporary staffing problem...
and, yes, the "current state of macro" is even worse than it used to be at the time the above statement was written...

Now, this is an interesting coincidence.
It gave me some motivation.
I guess it was an useful experience for the author of the statement.
If it was useful for him, for sure it will be a very very useful experience for me.
I still have a long way to go...

By the way, who is the guy that I'm talking about?

Some references about the state of Macroeconomics:
William Barnett (2012) http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2009Papers/201218.pdf
/Notes%20Current%20State%20Empirical%201976.pdf
Chari and Kehoe (2006) http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30033681.pdf
Bob Solow (2008) http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27648233.pdf
Chari and Kehoe (2008) http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27648234.pdf
Bob Hall (1976) http://web.stanford.edu/~rehall
Bob Solow () https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/festschrift/Papers/Stig-Solow.pdf