This course will explore the history credit, defined as the introduction of time into value. The course will proceed chronologically from the time of William Petty, John Law and Richard Cantillon in the late seventeen and early eighteen century through three thematic sessions.

• From sovereign wealth to trade credit

• From commerce to sovereign credit

• From central banking to populist money

The instructor, Walter E. Perry holds a BA and PhD in the traditional curriculum of Ancient Greek. He has done extensive work on analyzing the US money supply during the great inflation of 1978 – 1982, bond indentures, insurance contract and derivative instruments of all sorts. Dr. Perry is the founder of Fiduciary Automation, an IT company that instantiate regulations as executable code which could be run against proposed financial instruments or strategies to render determinative opinions as to their compliance and to illuminate ambiguities.

Dates: Wednesdays: 4/05, 4/12, 4/19; from 6:30PM to 8:00PM ET

Location: Online via Zoom

Note: This is an online event. Access information for Zoom will be made available via email the day of each session.

When natural opportunities become scarce, a rule for allocating them becomes necessary. After considering alternatives, the course develops the case for an equal division of the rent from natural opportunities, then examines the issue of how rent would be assessed. Rent is then divided into portions generated by nature, by infrastructure and by nearby private development, with a different allocation for each.

The framework of justice for natural opportunities is shown to have a natural counterpart in a theory of a just monetary system. Adding an international dimension, the course deals with payments among nations to compensate for inequalities in per capita natural opportunities, with a global system for managing climate-warming activities, with secession, and with refugees. Finally, the course addresses the question of how the conception of justice advanced by the course might be achieved.

The instructor, Nicolaus Tideman is a Professor of Economics at Virginia Tech.  He received his bachelor’s degree from Reed College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1969.  From 1969 to 1973 he was Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University.  In 1970-71 he served as Senior Staff Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisors.  He has also served as a consultant at the Bureau of the Budget (predecessor to the Office of Management and Budget) and at the Office of Tax Analysis in the Department of the Treasury.  He has been at Virginia Tech since 1973, as a post-doctoral fellow, Associate Professor, and Professor since 1985.  He has published over 100 professional articles and the book, Collective Decisions and Voting: The Potential for Public Choice.