they paid it back

don't fear that

I dont like the fact that Ive paid money to slave owners

at some point we have to stop trying to retrospectively fix things and just accept that the past is the past

you haven't

and my government forced me to do it

you've paid money to random debters

who paid the slave owners

the money was for slaves

We could have just copied Russia and forced the Slaves to pay it off

Also when, in the 1880s, the government decided to pay this. Almost none of the governments wealth was from taxation of random plebs

so why have we been paying it right up until 2015?

it was from merchant duties, many of whom were profiting from slave products, and taxes on estates

Probably because WW1 happened and annihilated the country's finances before it was paid off before

then WW2 happened and did it again

in that case I demand germany pay me reparations for slavery

Deal

Well if it's WW1 I'm definitely blaming Austria

How would they pay reparations though since the Austro-Hungarian Empire doesn't exist anymore?

It wouldn't be fair to put it all on Austria

Put it all on Bosnia just to make it the least fair possible

ez

germany has enough

they got all that nazi gold

and they didn't pay either of their world war bills in full <:peepoMad:611573754060996618>

I wonder if the EU does refunds... how much you reckon we paid in over the years.. minus rebates and money spent on us.... a trillion?

Well to be fair the first bill was far too high

They should have paid the second in full though

how do you even go about quantifying it?

the EU funds?

I mean if I were the French I'd be inclined to shove a enormous pipe up Germany's ass for turning the north and east of my country into a continous warzone too. So I can't exactly fault them for that bill

they send us a big fat bill every year

The war wasn't really Germany's fault though and when Germany had beaten France in the Franco-Prussian war earlier on the restrictions placed on the French were much more lenient

if you look at your tax receipt it will tell you exactly how much you personally sent to the EU every year

And that war was absolutely France's fault

The Franco-Prussian war was tiny and lasted one year, maybe 900,000 died on both sides. The First World War took 4 years and killed 1.4 million Frenchmen alone. For that you have to get a victory that is worth more than the one gained for a one year war of less than 1/10th the casualty scale. Also the war was in large measure Germany's fault for giving Austria a blank cheque of unconditional support to do literally anything to Serbia. There's a boat-load of literature about the German high-command (who were a prominent government institution, not just a military body) being eager for conflict beyond their natural duty to prepare for the eventuality.

Small point but slavery was about as beneficial as the mass importation of low income labour is today.

It doesn't help society.

What it does is hold it back.

It's a way for a rich few to hold onto their position and avoid making real advancements or dealing with the market properly.

But, the comically stupid figure of Conrad von Hotzendorf, the Austrian cheif of staff who wanted the war literally to get in a married woman's pants, makes me want to blame Austria entirely