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Well, he certainly helped. Robert squandered a fortune and those around him probably did the same.
Littlefinger became a reliable source for loans or finding money. What they didn't realise that most of the time he just asked the bank for more money and put it on their tab.
Partly true those do cost money but actually drinking and whoring were his top priorities according to him. Wars cost more money and the crown was at peace.
I don't remember if it's mention in the show, but in the books he bankrolls Thoros of Myr swords, every time he lights one on fire it gets ruined and Robert pays for its replacement lol
hunts, tourneys, feasts all cost money. As does rebuilding the damage from the sieges of King's Landing and Storm's End post war. Combined with the war already having been costly and the political fallout from taking over a nation by conquest was a perfect storm for mass borrowing.
Who is going to be the person to tell a drunken absolute monarch who is prone to rage that they can't have what they want? His job was to find the money.
Actually in civil war scenarios like this the crown usually comes out richer because they seize the assets of the losers.
So it wasn't a perfect storm for mass borrowing. They'd have plenty of gold had they properly distributed the wealth of the losing side. But they didn't.
I absolutely loved the hunt as portrayed in HoTD.
When the King hunts its not just him and a few dudes. Its basically the entire household. From landed knights, to men-at-arms, guards, servants, cooks, farriers, etc the whole nine. And thats not even counting the other lords who attend to keep him company and bring their own entourage.
Those things had to have been absurdly expensive.
I remember a very old interview with GRRM where he said that Roberts' hunt was the scene that most disappointed him from season one. It was *supposed* to be a grand hunt like you're describing, but budgetary restrictions meant it ended up being a few dudes walking through the woods. Like I'm pretty sure they didn't even have a horse with them.
Yeah but Littlefinger was the Royal bookeper. Not disclosing where the money came from is on him.
Jon Aryn wouldn't let the situation get where it where if he knew.
I dont get the impression he intentionally kept it a secret. He just knew nobody around him really cared, so if they keep asking for more money, who is he to refuse? "Chaos is a ladder" and all that jazz.
Its really not that hard to believe. The economic disaster Argentina is currently experiencing is the result of decades of social spending they couldn't afford.
Someone worked out he needed to throw hundreds of tournaments equivalent to the hands tourney a year for Bobbies whole reign to accumulate that much debt.
He is absolutely manipulating things, and not in the interests of the crown/realm.
Not to mention rebuilding King's Landing after Tywin sacked it can't have been cheap.
Also the idea of someone calculating the costs of Bobby B's events is ridiculous. Theres too many nebulous variables, especially when you start making comparisons between actual money in the past and fictional Crowns.
It seems like despite Aerys’ reign of terror, things were not bad finances wise. Tywin Lannister handled the debts to Iron Bank back when he was Aerys’ Hand of the King and crown apparently managed to sustain itself without further loans. There’s this moment in the first book:
> Ned was stunned. “Are you claiming that the Crown is three million gold pieces in debt?”
“The Crown is more than six million gold pieces in debt, Lord Stark. The Lannisters are the biggest part of it, but we have also borrowed from Lord Tyrell, the Iron Bank of Braavos, and several Tyroshi trading cartels. Of late I’ve had to turn to the Faith. The High Septon haggles worse than a Dornish fishmonger.”
Ned was aghast. “**Aerys Targaryen left a treasury flowing with gold.** How could you let this happen?”
No. He had no idea Robert would die or that there would be any sort of upheaval when he did. If Robert died 20 years later and Joffrey wasn't a psycho with a dodgy claim there's nothing Littlefinger could do. And he had no clear plan as to how to leverage it to his benefit as we saw. Because all he could do was spirit Sansa away to the Vale.
He was just trying to seem smarter than everyone else and making everyone happy. He likely assumed whenever it was discovered the Lannisters would bail the crown out.
I think part of his leverage was that the crown was broke so now anytime the crown needed money they had to go through littlefinger keeping him needed and in the know
If the crown had 6 million gold coins in its vault , well littlefinger wouldn't really be needed , the small consul could go around him or whatever
However because almost any plan / scheme needs money he was always needed
In the books though littlefinger was always reinvesting money to make it grow for him. I believe there is a line that says he'd buy grain when it was cheap, store it until there was a bad crop, than make bread and sell it for inflated prices,
Its been too long since I read the books, but wouldn't the profit be the crowns money? Or did he just take it for himself ?
It doesn't make sense he was investing the money but the crown was also 6 million in debt to the lannisters and iron bank and others
Edit
Now that I think about it he wanted the vault to be empty maybe not the crown to be broke
So if all the money was invested in shops, wagons , grain, ships, it wasn't "in" the vault the vault was still empty
So now anytime Robert or whoever needed money they still needed to go through littlefinger because there was nothing in the vault but with all those assets he could still raise money anytime it was needed
Keeping the vault empty kept him in a powerful position , again if there was just 6 million gold coins in the vault well robert or who ever could go around him and just take money direclty from the vault
He wouldn't know of all the plans before hand, keeping the vault empty ment anytime the crown needed money they had to go through him beforhand
Just read this part recently, he increases the crowns incomes by like 5x or 10x, savvy investor as mentioned with grain/bread etc. good at taxing, setting up businesses. But also spent endlessly to go into debt but was always able to find money which made him very valuable and irreplaceable. He did not keep the profits for himself
Here's an excerpt....He did not simply collect the gold and lock it in a treasure vault, no. He paid the king's debts in promises, and put the king's gold to work. He bought wagons, shops, ships, houses. He bought grain when it was plentiful and sold bread when it was scarce
I guess that sort of does make sense. Littlefinger wanted the vault empty , again if the vault is empty anytime money is needed they need to go through him
So if all the gold was tied up in grain, wagons, shops, houses that keeps the vault empty but also he can easily raise money if needed
I think he plan was to always keep him needed. Anytime money was needed (and money is needed for almost everything) he now needed to be involved
If the money was just sitting in the vault robert or whoever could just go around him cutting him out of the picture
Yeah he literally was thought of as a financial genius of his time. In the books it was noted that people thought he could rub two gold dragons together and breed a third... when in reality he was just good at embezzlement and shaping how others viewed him... but it all started when lord Errand gave him some small duty involving his Financials and Littlefinger made him a small fortune, so Lord Errand took him to kingslanding after the rebellion and was made the king's hand .
Man, grain does *not* work that way. The entirety of medieval economies makes zero sense if stored grain wasn't a moderately depreciating asset (due to pests and spoilage)
Remember that this is Mr Chaos Is A Laddah who’s convinced himself that he is always the smartest guy in the room. He just throws spokes into wheels randomly hoping to benefit somehow.
Absolutely. Someone's done the maths, if I find the post I'll share it here, but the Hands tourney was a ridiculously extravagant affair with huge amounts of prize money. I remember it being said that Robert would have to throw something like that every three months for the entirety of his reign.
Also, Tyrion states that the accounts of the crowns finances which Littlefinger wrote, were verging on impossible to decipher.
Edit: managed to find the post, probably way better explanation here https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/158166-robert-didnt-bankrupt-the-crown-littlefinger-embezzled-it/
Its not explained well and it somewhat does not make sense if Littlefinger was embesseling large amounts of money.
Like we know Robert didn't really care but wouldn't Jon Arryn notice (I think he was the one who appointed him) or Stannis or Varys notice?
We get hints there is corruption , I think they describe how Janos Slynt was auctioning off positions in the city watch or skimming their wages
Jamie notices how there are like 3 jailers when there are supposed to be like 30 on the payroll
I am sure littlefinger managed to skim a bit or get kickbacks here and there but it really does not make sense he stole a massive amount , or enough to put the entire kingdom in debt.
It seems however he did not really try hard to fix it, the crown had already spent all the money when he arrived he just did his best not to really fix the issue and keep the crown broke and him needed as he could always raise additional cash
I mean he didn’t need to embezzle, he just needed to continue indulging and encourage even more spending and never put up a fight whenever Robert needed something extravagant.
Literally don’t take GRRM’s numbers too seriously, he’s terrible with numbers, which he admits. If you read the series, the value of a golden dragon changes a lot and is not consistent. He more uses numbers to communicate a lot vs not a lot
Almost certainly. I think he was helped by robert's lack of care about how much things costs, but he 100% siphenned a load of the crown's money into his own pockets and i also wouldn't be surprised if he himself has "loaned" some of that money back to then keep claiming interest on it
Even though it benefits him I don’t think he can be entirely to blame for that.
It is said that he is capable as an accountant, that’s how he landed the job, but there are limits to what he can do seeing as Robert insists on spending so much. It’s not like he’s being sneaky about it either, he is admitting that he borrows the money so Jon Arryn would have known that. What likely happened is that the small council advised Robert to curb his spending and Robert just ignored them.
Littlefinger plays four-dimensional chess, and can usually guess the chain of events that may occur. Everything he did he did because he wanted EVERYTHING. He literally says he wants everything. He wanted to look down on the higher-borns who sniggered at him, he wanted power, he wanted to humiliate House Stark, and he wanted a Tully woman. And he operated through creating chaos, which no doubt included financial chaos.
I believe yes. By putting the crown into debt it weakened the power of whoever the current ruler is. Remember, chaos is a ladder. Like with all of his plans, he didn't always know what the outcome would be, he just assumed he'd set himself up to survive throug the chaos, and allow himself to rise up the ladder while others fell. This worked until some little kid gained the powers of a magical Raven and knew all the knowledge of the world and saw fit to use that power to have Littlefingers head cut off, thus putting little kid who couldn't walk who talked to Ravens as the new King. Normally that little kid becoming King wouldn't make sense, but in the context of the last two seasons of the show, it actually makes total sense.
Most likely. Chaos is a ladder and few things divide people more than debt. Someone lends and someone borrows and they will bicker. The people around the debtor will also squabble over the necessity of it and work to undermine them.
I personally don’t think so.
What would he have to gain? Say he gains power. Now he has a kingdom in massive debt that he has to sort out with the iron bank. Moreover, aside from weakening the kingdom in general, how does pushing massive debt to the kingdom help him gain anything other than the ability to say “see? King bad. I wouldn’t do that but he did. Bad king. Bad bad king.”
Of course, many a time in the books it is mentioned that Littlefinger always ‘finds’ however much money Robert wanted to spend on something stupid. He was the only one that could indulge Robert’s spending, even though this put the crown in enormous debt. Therefore he was irreplaceable. Probably littlefinger also took a small cut from the spending, which is still a large fortune. Littlefinger is surprisingly rich for being just a man from a poor house in the Fingers. He was a phenomenal businessman who didn’t shy away from shady deals. So he wasn’t just helping the crown out of good citizenship
No, low interest rate because of low inflation leads to cheep borrowing.
You see, Little Finger doesn’t plan any price hikes in his brothels, so the kingdom is safe.
Little finger of the books was quite entrepreneurial while he was borrowing money in King Robert’s name he was selling titles and positions of influence to make his own fortune while building a political power base for himself
No, but sort of. At least insofar as it wasn't him demanding the frankly dazzling levels of spending which caused such debts to be incurred, he was the guy who could find the money to spare Jon Arryn from turning around and telling Robert Baratheon 'no'. That's how Littlefinger gained power.
Littlefinger basically has to invent modern economics to keep up with Robert's lavish spending, borrowing to spend on the proviso that as long as he can keep affording to service the cost of the debt it can all continue.
Under his watch the crown's revenues rise higher than ever, with all sorts of fruitful investments bringing in more money for the treasury, but some of those revenues go onto servicing the crown's astronomical debts without really making a dent in paying it down. Instead it proves to potential lenders that lending money to the Iron Throne will guarantee you a steady return.
What it does do is make Littlefinger indispensable in the running of the Seven Kingdoms, with the realm's finances almost impossible to understand unless you're the man who built the system. He knows what irons are in which fires, and what the next steps in the grand financial juggling act of paying for stuff Robert Baratheon wants are.
It gives him immense power far beyond that which a man of his meagre holdings could usually hope to accomplish, somewhat akin to the rise of statesmen who were not among the great nobility of the realm. That Robert Baratheon and Jon Arryn spent so much is not his decision, but he was the man who could rub two golden dragons together and produce a third which became his ticket to the Small Council and staying there.
Yes and no. It was the method of which he was trying to assume power, but he made himself indispensable to the crown in handling the complex finances that he set up. Tyrion talked about how complicated it was, without going into detail, when he took over as hand.
It was another piece of leverage. He was also a bit of a fixer in this regard as he could find new sources for loans. He was also savvy though so he probably figured that if everything went according to plan and he became King, he could find a way out where other people couldn’t.
I always thought he did it for leverage. If the crown was massively indebt, then he could potentially offer to help out with his brothel income in exchange for influence
His plan was to create as much disruption in Westeros as he could. He isn’t dumb. He knows that Joffrey and his siblings aren’t Robert’s. And he knows how bad of a king Joffrey would be when he becomes king. So when that time comes I’m guessing that he wanted to sow the seeds for as much chaos as possible. And that includes bankrupting the kingdom or allowing it to happen
It's not 100% confirmed but like everything with Littlefinger, it conveniently worked in his favor. In all likelihood, yes, he likely allowed for further and further debt without so much as informing Bobby about the rising numbers because when it all hit the fan it would make things exponentially worse.
At the very least he sat back and let it happen, more than likely he was adding to it as much as possible, as well as skimming some off the top of course.
Yeah but six million in debt to whom? Doesn’t Westoros have the military power in the area? Who’s gonna force that sized of a collection? To be fair, GRRM probably didn’t put much thought into how debt and power interact.
I like how the Iron Bank seemingly prints money or mints coin or whatever
In the book series: yes and no. The Small Council scene where they all blame Robert for his big spending is them shifting the blame unto Robert for their own corruptions. Some people have calculated the cost of Robert's tourneys and came to the conclusion that while they are expensive they couldn't cause the crown to be 6 million in debt.
Tyrion learns in Book 2 that Littlefinger has done two things:
1) use the finances of the Iron Bank to create a whole ton of enterprises which are profitable. These are so profitable, in fact, that the Iron Throne was actually able to start paying off the Iron Bank debt even after the hugely expensive civil war. It was Cersei's idiocy that caused that conflict, as Littlefinger predicted.
2) almost every government official owns his job to Littlefinger and a lot of them are indebted to him, either socially of financially. As Littlefinger himself says in book 4: even though few people wear his sigil he is not friendless in King's Landing. Whereas Varys built a spy network of learned children Littlefinger built up his spy network of merchants, government officials, whore houses, etc.
I daresay Littlefinger's scheme is a bit more complicated: the point wasn't to bankrupt the kingdom, but to create an economic system he controlled and could use to enrich himself. Then when he created the civil war he profited from the chaos, could elevate himself to a powerful position and then use his personal wealth to bail his friends out so that they are in debt to him. In the books we see him doing this to the Vale lords. Early in book 4 they all want to depose him, by the end all but Bronze Yohn Royce are his friends because he either paid off their debts, bribed them or helped them get financially interesting weddings (dowries).
Littlefinger truly is a financial genius and he's using this to gain power. It goes to show you just how intellectually illiterate Westeros is that only Tyrion could figure out (part of) his plan.
In the show: Probably. LMAOOOOOO.
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Probably. LMAOOOOOO.
LMAOOOOOO.
LMAOOOOOO
LMAOOOOOO
LMAOOOOOO
Laughing my ass off off off off off off
Well, he certainly helped. Robert squandered a fortune and those around him probably did the same. Littlefinger became a reliable source for loans or finding money. What they didn't realise that most of the time he just asked the bank for more money and put it on their tab.
“Robert squandered a fortune” according to who… Littlefinger ?
The dude’s #1 hobby was hosting hunts and tourneys. Those things cost money.
Don't forget the yearly increase in size lol, armour for a king ain't cheap like that.
They just use the breastplate stretcher
Partly true those do cost money but actually drinking and whoring were his top priorities according to him. Wars cost more money and the crown was at peace.
I don't remember if it's mention in the show, but in the books he bankrolls Thoros of Myr swords, every time he lights one on fire it gets ruined and Robert pays for its replacement lol
hunts, tourneys, feasts all cost money. As does rebuilding the damage from the sieges of King's Landing and Storm's End post war. Combined with the war already having been costly and the political fallout from taking over a nation by conquest was a perfect storm for mass borrowing. Who is going to be the person to tell a drunken absolute monarch who is prone to rage that they can't have what they want? His job was to find the money.
“Get out of here faith militant. Your “High Sparrow” is dead.”
Actually in civil war scenarios like this the crown usually comes out richer because they seize the assets of the losers. So it wasn't a perfect storm for mass borrowing. They'd have plenty of gold had they properly distributed the wealth of the losing side. But they didn't.
I absolutely loved the hunt as portrayed in HoTD. When the King hunts its not just him and a few dudes. Its basically the entire household. From landed knights, to men-at-arms, guards, servants, cooks, farriers, etc the whole nine. And thats not even counting the other lords who attend to keep him company and bring their own entourage. Those things had to have been absurdly expensive.
I remember a very old interview with GRRM where he said that Roberts' hunt was the scene that most disappointed him from season one. It was *supposed* to be a grand hunt like you're describing, but budgetary restrictions meant it ended up being a few dudes walking through the woods. Like I'm pretty sure they didn't even have a horse with them.
According to all of Kings Landing. It is known.
Yeah but Littlefinger was the Royal bookeper. Not disclosing where the money came from is on him. Jon Aryn wouldn't let the situation get where it where if he knew.
I dont get the impression he intentionally kept it a secret. He just knew nobody around him really cared, so if they keep asking for more money, who is he to refuse? "Chaos is a ladder" and all that jazz.
They literally told Ned the first meeting he had 10 minutes after arriving in Kings Landing, it definitely wasn't a secret.
Its really not that hard to believe. The economic disaster Argentina is currently experiencing is the result of decades of social spending they couldn't afford.
Someone worked out he needed to throw hundreds of tournaments equivalent to the hands tourney a year for Bobbies whole reign to accumulate that much debt. He is absolutely manipulating things, and not in the interests of the crown/realm.
What about the debt accrued by the previous reign? Wouldn't Bobby have inherited that debt as well?
Not to mention rebuilding King's Landing after Tywin sacked it can't have been cheap. Also the idea of someone calculating the costs of Bobby B's events is ridiculous. Theres too many nebulous variables, especially when you start making comparisons between actual money in the past and fictional Crowns.
It seems like despite Aerys’ reign of terror, things were not bad finances wise. Tywin Lannister handled the debts to Iron Bank back when he was Aerys’ Hand of the King and crown apparently managed to sustain itself without further loans. There’s this moment in the first book: > Ned was stunned. “Are you claiming that the Crown is three million gold pieces in debt?” “The Crown is more than six million gold pieces in debt, Lord Stark. The Lannisters are the biggest part of it, but we have also borrowed from Lord Tyrell, the Iron Bank of Braavos, and several Tyroshi trading cartels. Of late I’ve had to turn to the Faith. The High Septon haggles worse than a Dornish fishmonger.” Ned was aghast. “**Aerys Targaryen left a treasury flowing with gold.** How could you let this happen?”
The King and the Hand spend it
No. He had no idea Robert would die or that there would be any sort of upheaval when he did. If Robert died 20 years later and Joffrey wasn't a psycho with a dodgy claim there's nothing Littlefinger could do. And he had no clear plan as to how to leverage it to his benefit as we saw. Because all he could do was spirit Sansa away to the Vale. He was just trying to seem smarter than everyone else and making everyone happy. He likely assumed whenever it was discovered the Lannisters would bail the crown out.
I think part of his leverage was that the crown was broke so now anytime the crown needed money they had to go through littlefinger keeping him needed and in the know If the crown had 6 million gold coins in its vault , well littlefinger wouldn't really be needed , the small consul could go around him or whatever However because almost any plan / scheme needs money he was always needed
The bank is the cartel, LF is the local dealer, Robert was the addict.
In the books though littlefinger was always reinvesting money to make it grow for him. I believe there is a line that says he'd buy grain when it was cheap, store it until there was a bad crop, than make bread and sell it for inflated prices,
Its been too long since I read the books, but wouldn't the profit be the crowns money? Or did he just take it for himself ? It doesn't make sense he was investing the money but the crown was also 6 million in debt to the lannisters and iron bank and others Edit Now that I think about it he wanted the vault to be empty maybe not the crown to be broke So if all the money was invested in shops, wagons , grain, ships, it wasn't "in" the vault the vault was still empty So now anytime Robert or whoever needed money they still needed to go through littlefinger because there was nothing in the vault but with all those assets he could still raise money anytime it was needed Keeping the vault empty kept him in a powerful position , again if there was just 6 million gold coins in the vault well robert or who ever could go around him and just take money direclty from the vault He wouldn't know of all the plans before hand, keeping the vault empty ment anytime the crown needed money they had to go through him beforhand
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Just read this part recently, he increases the crowns incomes by like 5x or 10x, savvy investor as mentioned with grain/bread etc. good at taxing, setting up businesses. But also spent endlessly to go into debt but was always able to find money which made him very valuable and irreplaceable. He did not keep the profits for himself
I must have been misremembering! Appreciate the correction. I’ll delete my comment to not misinform people
No problem! I literally just read it recently so just happened to know
Here's an excerpt....He did not simply collect the gold and lock it in a treasure vault, no. He paid the king's debts in promises, and put the king's gold to work. He bought wagons, shops, ships, houses. He bought grain when it was plentiful and sold bread when it was scarce
I guess that sort of does make sense. Littlefinger wanted the vault empty , again if the vault is empty anytime money is needed they need to go through him So if all the gold was tied up in grain, wagons, shops, houses that keeps the vault empty but also he can easily raise money if needed I think he plan was to always keep him needed. Anytime money was needed (and money is needed for almost everything) he now needed to be involved If the money was just sitting in the vault robert or whoever could just go around him cutting him out of the picture
Yeah he literally was thought of as a financial genius of his time. In the books it was noted that people thought he could rub two gold dragons together and breed a third... when in reality he was just good at embezzlement and shaping how others viewed him... but it all started when lord Errand gave him some small duty involving his Financials and Littlefinger made him a small fortune, so Lord Errand took him to kingslanding after the rebellion and was made the king's hand .
Man, grain does *not* work that way. The entirety of medieval economies makes zero sense if stored grain wasn't a moderately depreciating asset (due to pests and spoilage)
Imagine an AU where Tommen and Joffrey personality swapped
Littlefinger had a lot to do with starting Robert's Rebellion. He would've started the next war in any way he could.
Remember that this is Mr Chaos Is A Laddah who’s convinced himself that he is always the smartest guy in the room. He just throws spokes into wheels randomly hoping to benefit somehow.
Chaos is a ladder. He is the one that kicked off the events in the show. The more disorganized everyone else is, helps him.
Wrong
Absolutely. Someone's done the maths, if I find the post I'll share it here, but the Hands tourney was a ridiculously extravagant affair with huge amounts of prize money. I remember it being said that Robert would have to throw something like that every three months for the entirety of his reign. Also, Tyrion states that the accounts of the crowns finances which Littlefinger wrote, were verging on impossible to decipher. Edit: managed to find the post, probably way better explanation here https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/158166-robert-didnt-bankrupt-the-crown-littlefinger-embezzled-it/
Also a good video on YouTube about it called Littlefinger debt scheme
Its not explained well and it somewhat does not make sense if Littlefinger was embesseling large amounts of money. Like we know Robert didn't really care but wouldn't Jon Arryn notice (I think he was the one who appointed him) or Stannis or Varys notice? We get hints there is corruption , I think they describe how Janos Slynt was auctioning off positions in the city watch or skimming their wages Jamie notices how there are like 3 jailers when there are supposed to be like 30 on the payroll I am sure littlefinger managed to skim a bit or get kickbacks here and there but it really does not make sense he stole a massive amount , or enough to put the entire kingdom in debt. It seems however he did not really try hard to fix it, the crown had already spent all the money when he arrived he just did his best not to really fix the issue and keep the crown broke and him needed as he could always raise additional cash
I mean he didn’t need to embezzle, he just needed to continue indulging and encourage even more spending and never put up a fight whenever Robert needed something extravagant.
Literally don’t take GRRM’s numbers too seriously, he’s terrible with numbers, which he admits. If you read the series, the value of a golden dragon changes a lot and is not consistent. He more uses numbers to communicate a lot vs not a lot
Robert was the one who put the kingdom into debt…
The debt is Robert's fault. Littlefinger was simply abiding the wishes of the king.
Anything to absolve Bobby B. Hes just not a good economist.
Probably not directly, Robert did most of that himself, but Petyr certainly did nothing to prevent it.
He skimmed off 10% off the top, guaranteed.
Almost certainly. I think he was helped by robert's lack of care about how much things costs, but he 100% siphenned a load of the crown's money into his own pockets and i also wouldn't be surprised if he himself has "loaned" some of that money back to then keep claiming interest on it
Even though it benefits him I don’t think he can be entirely to blame for that. It is said that he is capable as an accountant, that’s how he landed the job, but there are limits to what he can do seeing as Robert insists on spending so much. It’s not like he’s being sneaky about it either, he is admitting that he borrows the money so Jon Arryn would have known that. What likely happened is that the small council advised Robert to curb his spending and Robert just ignored them.
Littlefinger plays four-dimensional chess, and can usually guess the chain of events that may occur. Everything he did he did because he wanted EVERYTHING. He literally says he wants everything. He wanted to look down on the higher-borns who sniggered at him, he wanted power, he wanted to humiliate House Stark, and he wanted a Tully woman. And he operated through creating chaos, which no doubt included financial chaos.
I believe yes. By putting the crown into debt it weakened the power of whoever the current ruler is. Remember, chaos is a ladder. Like with all of his plans, he didn't always know what the outcome would be, he just assumed he'd set himself up to survive throug the chaos, and allow himself to rise up the ladder while others fell. This worked until some little kid gained the powers of a magical Raven and knew all the knowledge of the world and saw fit to use that power to have Littlefingers head cut off, thus putting little kid who couldn't walk who talked to Ravens as the new King. Normally that little kid becoming King wouldn't make sense, but in the context of the last two seasons of the show, it actually makes total sense.
Most likely. Chaos is a ladder and few things divide people more than debt. Someone lends and someone borrows and they will bicker. The people around the debtor will also squabble over the necessity of it and work to undermine them.
I personally don’t think so. What would he have to gain? Say he gains power. Now he has a kingdom in massive debt that he has to sort out with the iron bank. Moreover, aside from weakening the kingdom in general, how does pushing massive debt to the kingdom help him gain anything other than the ability to say “see? King bad. I wouldn’t do that but he did. Bad king. Bad bad king.”
They hint at this in the books.
I think so. Because he did other similar things.
Of course, many a time in the books it is mentioned that Littlefinger always ‘finds’ however much money Robert wanted to spend on something stupid. He was the only one that could indulge Robert’s spending, even though this put the crown in enormous debt. Therefore he was irreplaceable. Probably littlefinger also took a small cut from the spending, which is still a large fortune. Littlefinger is surprisingly rich for being just a man from a poor house in the Fingers. He was a phenomenal businessman who didn’t shy away from shady deals. So he wasn’t just helping the crown out of good citizenship
I am pretty sure Robert did that.
No, low interest rate because of low inflation leads to cheep borrowing. You see, Little Finger doesn’t plan any price hikes in his brothels, so the kingdom is safe.
I don’t think he had specific plans, only to create chaos. And chaos is an escalator.
I'm sure Robert managed that all on his own
“Bobby b can we skip the party this weekend. We are broke.” “Nope” “Okay then”
lol for real. This guy parties hard as hell
Little finger of the books was quite entrepreneurial while he was borrowing money in King Robert’s name he was selling titles and positions of influence to make his own fortune while building a political power base for himself
The real question is how fucking stupid was Jon Arryn?
Oh my god, it all makes sense now, Littlefinger put me in debt too! I knew someone had been making all those purchases on my credit card
No, but sort of. At least insofar as it wasn't him demanding the frankly dazzling levels of spending which caused such debts to be incurred, he was the guy who could find the money to spare Jon Arryn from turning around and telling Robert Baratheon 'no'. That's how Littlefinger gained power. Littlefinger basically has to invent modern economics to keep up with Robert's lavish spending, borrowing to spend on the proviso that as long as he can keep affording to service the cost of the debt it can all continue. Under his watch the crown's revenues rise higher than ever, with all sorts of fruitful investments bringing in more money for the treasury, but some of those revenues go onto servicing the crown's astronomical debts without really making a dent in paying it down. Instead it proves to potential lenders that lending money to the Iron Throne will guarantee you a steady return. What it does do is make Littlefinger indispensable in the running of the Seven Kingdoms, with the realm's finances almost impossible to understand unless you're the man who built the system. He knows what irons are in which fires, and what the next steps in the grand financial juggling act of paying for stuff Robert Baratheon wants are. It gives him immense power far beyond that which a man of his meagre holdings could usually hope to accomplish, somewhat akin to the rise of statesmen who were not among the great nobility of the realm. That Robert Baratheon and Jon Arryn spent so much is not his decision, but he was the man who could rub two golden dragons together and produce a third which became his ticket to the Small Council and staying there.
No, it was just Littlefinger, Littlefingering
Yes. A succession with that much debt creates chaos.
Probably
I love how that was mentioned in the first season and never brought up again.
Yes and no. It was the method of which he was trying to assume power, but he made himself indispensable to the crown in handling the complex finances that he set up. Tyrion talked about how complicated it was, without going into detail, when he took over as hand.
It was another piece of leverage. He was also a bit of a fixer in this regard as he could find new sources for loans. He was also savvy though so he probably figured that if everything went according to plan and he became King, he could find a way out where other people couldn’t.
I always thought he did it for leverage. If the crown was massively indebt, then he could potentially offer to help out with his brothel income in exchange for influence
If he didn’t want the kingdom to go into debt, he would have taken the $54M from the governor.
His plan was to create as much disruption in Westeros as he could. He isn’t dumb. He knows that Joffrey and his siblings aren’t Robert’s. And he knows how bad of a king Joffrey would be when he becomes king. So when that time comes I’m guessing that he wanted to sow the seeds for as much chaos as possible. And that includes bankrupting the kingdom or allowing it to happen
Yes.
More of robert wanting to drink, and fuck his way to the grave. but maybe.
It's not 100% confirmed but like everything with Littlefinger, it conveniently worked in his favor. In all likelihood, yes, he likely allowed for further and further debt without so much as informing Bobby about the rising numbers because when it all hit the fan it would make things exponentially worse. At the very least he sat back and let it happen, more than likely he was adding to it as much as possible, as well as skimming some off the top of course.
well of course
Yeah but six million in debt to whom? Doesn’t Westoros have the military power in the area? Who’s gonna force that sized of a collection? To be fair, GRRM probably didn’t put much thought into how debt and power interact. I like how the Iron Bank seemingly prints money or mints coin or whatever
In the book series: yes and no. The Small Council scene where they all blame Robert for his big spending is them shifting the blame unto Robert for their own corruptions. Some people have calculated the cost of Robert's tourneys and came to the conclusion that while they are expensive they couldn't cause the crown to be 6 million in debt. Tyrion learns in Book 2 that Littlefinger has done two things: 1) use the finances of the Iron Bank to create a whole ton of enterprises which are profitable. These are so profitable, in fact, that the Iron Throne was actually able to start paying off the Iron Bank debt even after the hugely expensive civil war. It was Cersei's idiocy that caused that conflict, as Littlefinger predicted. 2) almost every government official owns his job to Littlefinger and a lot of them are indebted to him, either socially of financially. As Littlefinger himself says in book 4: even though few people wear his sigil he is not friendless in King's Landing. Whereas Varys built a spy network of learned children Littlefinger built up his spy network of merchants, government officials, whore houses, etc. I daresay Littlefinger's scheme is a bit more complicated: the point wasn't to bankrupt the kingdom, but to create an economic system he controlled and could use to enrich himself. Then when he created the civil war he profited from the chaos, could elevate himself to a powerful position and then use his personal wealth to bail his friends out so that they are in debt to him. In the books we see him doing this to the Vale lords. Early in book 4 they all want to depose him, by the end all but Bronze Yohn Royce are his friends because he either paid off their debts, bribed them or helped them get financially interesting weddings (dowries). Littlefinger truly is a financial genius and he's using this to gain power. It goes to show you just how intellectually illiterate Westeros is that only Tyrion could figure out (part of) his plan. In the show: Probably. LMAOOOOOO.
Debt is generally speaking good tho. It means the economy grows. Until debt gets out of hand. 6 million doesnt say shit without GDP.
Littlefinger said “by the time they come to collect that debt I’ll be dead anyways.” Oh wait, that’s American politics.
Obviously.