I’m deeply gratified by the large number of subscribers to BASTIAT’S WINDOW and by the rapidly increasing volume of readership. (After 10 days, one article, “1,600 Years of Medical Hubris,” has been viewed over 7,700 times.) If you haven’t yet subscribed, I’d be honored if you’d do so. If you’re enjoying BASTIAT’S WINDOW, I’ll ask a favor—please suggest to 2 or 3 friends that they also subscribe. I’m recruiting some really prominent and insightful people to write guest columns, and larger subscription and readership numbers make it a whole lot easier to get a “yes” when I ask.
As of this week, BASTIAT’S WINDOW is now the product of my business entity—RFG Counterpoint, LLC. Through this new corporation, I’ll be working as an economist, a journalist, and a musician/composer. My new website, rfgcounterpoint.com, includes links to BASTIAT’S WINDOW, to RFG Music, to my Twitter feed, and to my archives.
I chose the name “RFG Counterpoint” because it’s my initials plus a word that is applicable to economics, journalism, and music—and in a way that represents my overarching goal of civil discourse. In music, counterpoint is the joining of two or more melodies that are harmonically and rhythmically independent, and yet intertwined with one another. More generally, counterpoint is when two different things are compared in an interesting or pleasant way. The word can imply a complementary or contrasting item—a differing point of view. In other words, counterpoint says “on the other hand”—and that suggests an inside joke for an economist like me. President Harry Truman, tired of hearing his economic advisors say “on the other hand,” said what he really wanted was a one-handed economist. Coming full circle, when I play a work of counterpoint on the piano, I play a melody on one hand and a countermelody on the other hand.
Harry Truman was a pretty good pianist himself, so I’m guessing he would approve of my reasoning here.