Reddit mentions of The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World

>With respect both Littlefinger & Varys are minor characters. The final act of the final book was all about Bayaz, he is the villain of the books after all.

How does the whole Song of Ice and Fire series start? Ned Stark heads to kings landing to replace Jon Arryn after receiving a warning from Catelyn sister that Jon Arryn was murdered. Then Catelyn kidnaps the the son of the most powerful lord is Westeros precipitating a massive civil war.

..all done at the instigation of Littlefinger... Little Finger at the end of the First three books is not so dissimilar from Bayaz, even down to their fondness for the capital markets.

>None of these names are responsible for industrial revolution investment

Sir Thomas Greshman and Sir Isaac Netwon are both responsible for England having the coinage and being able to raise the capital to build the ships that necessitated the building of industrial foundries in the first place. They ARE responsible. And in addition they were also individual investors.

>I know of none that have done so in the Industrial Revolution that occurred in Britain.
Thomas Greshman did, he was an active investor/ speculator/ merchant. Isaac Newton did as well though he was not as savvy an investor as Greshman Newton's scientific work obviously gave him a great advantage in discerning which new industrial processes were feasible.

> In an industrialised economy with complex financial systems of credit yes. In a country which has Renaissance level financing a lost investment could bankrupt the economy.

Yes! But you aren't paying attention to what I am saying. The creation of a "Complex" financial system (a central bank robust risk syndication mechanism ie exchanges) is precisely what Gresham (found the Royal Exchange) and Newton (Master, of the Royal Mint) did. Those systems are necessary in order to distribute the risk associated with the high speculative industrial venture you just mentioned.

And the creation of these types of institutions Exchange, Sound Coinage, Central Banking are what Savine would be quite useful to Bayaz in doing. I will presume for the time being that Bayaz knows what he's doing already and that Valint & Balk is serving as the Central Bank of t Union. But if Bayaz does not then he really needs someone like Savine actually set fiscal and monetary policy.

Have you read Neal Stephenson's Baroque sequence? It goes into great detail about the industrial revolution and role of financiers as well as scientists and industrialists in its creation. https://www.amazon.com/Baroque-Cycle-Quicksilver-Confusion-System-ebook/dp/B00KVIBWPI

> See France during the Revolution for starters. We know the Union is broke at the moment, if Sabine bets on a railway line that does not pay off there goes the budget. Even in our modern world governments will try to get as many private companies investing in infrastructure to share the risk.

France is an entirely different matter, I will discuss if you would like to get into the details of John Law ans the Mississippi Company but the constraints on the french fiscal and monetary system were largely a product of mismanagement not a inherent property of the state of their economy.

> Union is broke at the moment, if Sabine bets on a railway line that does not pay off there goes the budget.

This is not a meaningful statement. First of all England was broke that was precisely why the started to the Bank of England in the first place.

Secondly, Bayaz is the Union and Union is only "broke" in so much as it owes money to Valint & Balk, which is also Bayaz. So basically the Union owes money to itself, this is an easily resolved problem.

Lastly, Savine need only invent fiat currency. If John Law could come up with the idea, I'm sure she can as well.

> Even in our modern world governments will try to get as many private companies investing in infrastructure to share the risk.

First of all, not in place where they actually want the trains to get built. ie: China.

Second of all, this is largely an ideological choice. In america we tend to object to the government owning thing, the more useful the thing, the less we are comfortable so we let the private companies own things like railways. The result is that we have a terrible rail system.

> Quite frankly this is not a cause of industrialisation. The seven years war and establishment of the Bank of England is key to the creation of Capitalism but not industry. Technical innovation, an agricultural revolution and accumulation of private capital were the causes.

You argued earlier that capitalism was necessary in order to have an industrial revolution because "This is because they drive for profit making efficiencies and also because a lot of ventures fail. "

I do not actually agree with that. But given that nature of the economy in the Union financial markets and central banking will be necessary for them to continue their development. A mean of distribution of private capital to technological innovators is necessary in order for those technologies to be implemented.

>As mentioned before we are told the Union is broke, it isn't investing heavily any time soon. It couldn't pay for soldiers to put down the rebellion.

America is broke right now, as is Japan and England. When you control the supply of money "broke" is not a meaningful term.




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