How would Stannis repay the Iron Bank?

[Floki of the Ironborn]

Assuming he manages a precarious takeover of King's Landing, and takes the throne, how does he expect to pay back the incredible sum of money owed to the Bank?

The only way I can see it being done is if he plunders Casterly Rock and sends the Iron Bank the Lannisters' wealth. But that would require conquering the Rock, which has never been done.

[RedPriest]

Well, I guess that with Tywin and Kevan gone, Jaime, Cersei, and Daven are the last powerful Lannisters-if they're beaten, I doubt the castellan of Casterly Rock would hold out-the Iron Bank probably is going to be repaid with westerland gold

[The Fresh PtwP]

If he gets the IT every house that opposed him can expect to lose a majority of their wealth at a minimum. Since he's pretty much taking on all of Westeros that's a huge payout. Pretty much what happened after Blackwater but with more taking then giving...

[Net-Viper X]

I just figured he would re-instate the payments to the bank that Cersei stopped paying, and use part of the crown's tax income to pay them back over time. I imagine the crown probably has tax money flowing in from all over the kingdom, but Robert blows it all on party time. Stannis does not party, so all that beer and whore money can go to the bank instead.

I don't think he would sack the Lannister homeland for the money as long as they bent the knee, though he might make them abolish their portion of the crown's existing debt to them as a form of reparation for starting a war. Jaime and Cersei he would likely put to death, but I think the Lannister people that are just following their lords orders would be left alone.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

2 hours ago, Net-Viper X said:

I just figured he would re-instate the payments to the bank that Cersei stopped paying, and use part of the crown's tax income to pay them back over time. I imagine the crown probably has tax money flowing in from all over the kingdom, but Robert blows it all on party time. Stannis does not party, so all that beer and whore money can go to the bank instead.

I don't think he would sack the Lannister homeland for the money as long as they bent the knee, though he might make them abolish their portion of the crown's existing debt to them as a form of reparation for starting a war. Jaime and Cersei he would likely put to death, but I think the Lannister people that are just following their lords orders would be left alone.

Robert didn't break even on the tax money though, he had to borrow millions from anyone willing to lend him money. Tax revenue wasn't enough.

[Net-Viper X]

35 minutes ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Robert didn't break even on the tax money though, he had to borrow millions from anyone willing to lend him money. Tax revenue wasn't enough.

I thought that was due to all his huge tournaments and hunting forays he went on, along with the whoring and drinking and extremely poor management in general. The Targ Kings didn't seem to be in massive debt when they ruled.

[GallowsKnight]

The biggest debt was to the Lannisters, which Stannis can annul as they are traitors/hopefully exctinct. There was smaller debts to the Tyrells. Again he can do the same. The debt to the Faith also he'd likely not pay given they backed Tommen (and waived it anyway)

So that leaves only the debt to the Iron bank and lesser Free kingdom money lenders. Which all he needs to pay off piece by piece over time. He can do this from taxes and money levied/punder from those he defeats, e.g Lannisters and Tyrells

Sure no one has ever taken Casterly Rock by siege. But if he kills/imprisons all the Lannisters he can and occupies the Westerlands, well whoever is holding it is bound to surrender.

[Rob Storm]

1 hour ago, Net-Viper X said:

I thought that was due to all his huge tournaments and hunting forays he went on, along with the whoring and drinking and extremely poor management in general. The Targ Kings didn't seem to be in massive debt when they ruled.

I think all of that was a part of it but I think Tywin intentionally acquired Debt to have some semblance of control and power in relation to Baratheon, Arryn and lesser so, Stark.  I also think Petyr did shady business to get the crown into the state it was with the Iron Bank and may have been incorporated with Tywin.  Petyr was able to keep everything solvent when he wanted to but as soon as he disappeared to the Vale the bank came calling.  

Stannis would surely find a way to pay the bills.  He would consider heavily taxing prostitution and other things he disagrees with.  He would definitely take what he feels necessary from Lords he felt slighted by or who opposed him.  

[GallowsKnight]

11 minutes ago, Rob Storm said:

I think all of that was a part of it but I think Tywin intentionally acquired Debt to have some semblance of control and power in relation to Baratheon, Arryn and lesser so, Stark.

Funnily enough I tend to think Jon Arryn let the rampant borrowing go on because it meant the Lannisters and Iron Bank had to prop Rob's reign up to get their repayments (and usury profits), have you heard the expression "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem" ?

[Rob Storm]

12 minutes ago, GallowsKnight said:

Funnily enough I tend to think Jon Arryn let the rampant borrowing go on because it meant the Lannisters and Iron Bank had to prop Rob's reign up to get their repayments (and usury profits), have you heard the expression "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem" ?

I definitely think that is possible and it worked for 15ish years.  I think that both of our points can be true and Tywin was banking(pun intended) on the future.  Mainly that yeah Tywin backed the throne because of debt but also because his grandchildren were due to inherit and his daughter was queen.  Tywin always wanted his daughter as queen whether it was Rhaegar or Robert and would have propped whichever worked out.  But yes I definitely think Jon Arryn was a competent Hand that led an era after a 300 year dynasty fell down.  Impressive.  He did his job well and I think Tywin and Petyr played the game well concurrently on the side.  

[Lord Vance II]

I think it's worth considering how much additional debt Stannis might run up if he does manage to take the kingdom. He has very little military strength of his own by now and aims to take a continent. Half million dragons maybe? more? I'm sure the IB knows this though. 

[devilish]

10 hours ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Assuming he manages a precarious takeover of King's Landing, and takes the throne, how does he expect to pay back the incredible sum of money owed to the Bank?

The only way I can see it being done is if he plunders Casterly Rock and sends the Iron Bank the Lannisters' wealth. But that would require conquering the Rock, which has never been done.

a- Florents will take over the Reach. They will be so grateful that they wouldn't mind paying the bills
b- A lackey will be appointed as Lord Paramount of the Westerlands. He will also be so grateful that he wouldn't mind paying the bills
c- Littlefinger is hunted down and burnt to the stake. His fortune will confiscated.  

[Protagoras]

Yeah, no matter who the next regent is - the debt should be pretty easy to pay considering that unless the Lannister wins and keep their power over the Iron Throne (which is unlikely), no one else would consider to pay them back, especially not the Targs who will consider Roberts debts irrelevant for them since he was a usurper in the first place.

Stannis can´t do that, but if he wins the Lannisters are traitors, guilty of a vile crime and therefore have forfeited their right to get their money back. In addition, he strikes me like a man with few excesses and unlikely to put another Littlefinger on the master of coin. He will grind his teeth but 20 years later the money will most likely have been repaid.

[Lord Varys]

Stannis has already revealed that he intends to make new lords should he ever win the throne. Davos is his new Lord of the Stormlands, basically. A lot of the others there would be attainted as traitors and rebels. The same would happen all across the Realm, basically. Perhaps Stannis would spare some of the people who did not take up arms against him but we can reasonably assume that most of the Reach Lords and the Lords of the West siding with Renly or Joffrey and fighting against him would lose their wealth, their castles, and their titles.

Stannis would reshape the nobility of the Realm the way Prince Daemon suggested to Rhaenyra. He would destroy the Lannisters (of Casterly Rock and Lannisport), the Tyrells and many of their (richer) bannermen (not all of them have to be executed he could just attaint all of them, throwing them out of their castles and lands, and confiscate their wealth for the Crown). This should give him more than enough money to pay off the debts owed to the Iron Bank. In fact, it should him make the richest man in the Seven Kingdoms. The debts the Crown owed to the Lannisters and Tyrells would no longer exist, of course, and the High Septon already forgave King Tommen the debt owed to the Faith.

If all that wouldn't be enough then a victorious Stannis would just raise the taxes and suck Westeros dry of all its assets. The man doesn't really care all that much about the well-being of his people...

[MinotaurWarrior]

Crown revenues under Aerys ~=~ 1/10 *[the average interest rate on crown debt] * 6M dragons. Based on a few quotes between Tyrion, Tywin, and Littlefinger. 

As has been discussed, most of the crown debt goes away the instant he takes the throne. Assuming that Stannis can return the crown revenues to the level of Aerys / Tywin (a stretch to begin with) then he'd still fall short by a factor of about five, just trying to pay the interest.

Stannis will absolutely have to take extraordinary measures to repay the debt. I'm not as certain as others seem to be that he'd be down to attaint Willas. Mycah (1st in line for the rock once the Valonquar thing happens - the guy with no character who was central to the plot of the first three books) seems more likely, since he actually took up arms, but Willas never actually rebelled, and neither one committed other crimes. They were just younger family members of rebels, a situation Davos seems to have had some success getting Stannis to empathize with. Either way though, I don't think Stannis needs to put new houses in charge of Highgarden and The Rock to force the Reach and the Westerlands to pay for the crown debts. War reparations seem like a possible solution. We know that Tywin had 3M dragons to spare, so it's not crazy to me to think that Stannis could extract at least 1.5M from Mycah and another 1.5 from Willas.

Also, even without attainting anyone, Stannis will have tons of lordships to sell (Cersei says 'there's no shortage').

[John Doe]

If he would be in a position to pay them back, he would have successfully taken that throne. That means he can just pay them back with the normal income, which Cersei decided to waste on a few ships. 

[Blackfish Tully]

26 minutes ago, John Doe said:

If he would be in a position to pay them back, he would have successfully taken that throne. That means he can just pay them back with the normal income, which Cersei decided to waste on a few ships. 

That's a good point , it's not like Cersei or Tywin could not pay anything to the Iron Bank but in reality they just refused to pay anything . After the war they had a massive expensive wedding , replaced the High Septon's crown and Cersei built her massive ships . The Iron Bank would have contacts in Kings Landing and they would know all about the money the Iron Throne was spending. I'm sure the Iron Bank had a representative at the wedding and he probably spent the whole time calculating exactly how much everything cost . Also Tywin had two Valyrian swords made that were given as gifts to Joffrey and Jaimie (which Jaimie just gave his  away) either sword would have made a huge dent in what the Iron Throne owed to the Iron Bank .  

[Floki of the Ironborn]

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Stannis has already revealed that he intends to make new lords should he ever win the throne. Davos is his new Lord of the Stormlands, basically. ...

When does that become clear? I can't remember him hinting or declaring that he'll give Storm's End and the Stormlands to Davos.

And wouldn't the stormlords refuse to take orders from Davos, even if his power was legitimate and enforced?

[Lord Varys]

9 minutes ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

When does that become clear? I can't remember him hinting or declaring that he'll give Storm's End and the Stormlands to Davos.

And wouldn't the stormlords refuse to take orders from Davos, even if his power was legitimate and enforced?

Davos has been named Lord of the Rainwood by Stannis. He doesn't rule all the Stormlands but a rather sizable chunk of it, dispossessing quite a few houses in the region and setting up a new regional lord above some others, and it is pretty clear that the new 'strong man' of the Stormlands is supposed to be Davos after the end of the war. If Stannis were stuck with Shireen as his only heir in the end he could easily enough grant Storm's End and the entire Stormlands to Davos. He has half of them already.

[John Doe]

34 minutes ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

When does that become clear?

It doesn't.