Lannisters are actually descended from First Men.
They are rich, but not filthy. They accumulated wealth through investing in the mining of mineral resources in the Westerlands.
They never did any cheesy stuff with their money, no usury, no manipulation ,no inflation policy, under their rules, the Westerlands became the kingdom with the wealthiest inhabitants.
>A Lannister always pays his debts
It's Tyin himself who actually made sure that all the debt was repaid by his bannermen, after his father (Tytos) fucked up by lending all people who asked nicely his money, without ever doing anything to make them repay.
There is some talk about economics in the lore, but you have to look out for it.
The Targaryen monetary system brought wealthto the country, to be sure, but individual kingdoms would sometimes be better off by conducting transactions between each other, especially the Lannisters, Tyrells or Arryns, who got a lot of mineral and/or agricultural resources in their domains.
The Lannisters actually never di mmoney-lending, the Iron Bank of Braavos would be what you're looking for.
Robert drained the Lannister money of his wife's family, because of his constant fornication, all the money wasted on tournaments and feasting, millions of gold dragons lost to the corrupt master of coin and bureaucratic incompetence.
The Lannisters are the only ones who hold together this financial system, enforced upon them by the necessity of holding the Iron Throne.
In fact, the Lannisters had to take loands from the Iron Bank in order to keep on lending money on their own.
When the Lannisters go down (their gold mines are already depleted by now), the economy will collapse, nobody will be able to repay their debts to the Iron Bank, which will hurt for decades.
>stannis abandoned the religion of his ancestors
He's basically Marcus Aurelius, he is an ideal military man, he has no faith in the gods, but he loves his daughter.
Attached: Tywin_Lannister.jpg (980x816, 117K)