It is time to pay Greece now!

World War One Officially Ends This Week

Took them a while, but Germany has finally finished paying off reparations for that nasty bit of business almost a century ago.

Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, leaving nearly ten million soldiers dead.

The initial sum agreed upon for war damages in 1919 was 226 billion Reichsmarks (about 750 billion US dollars), a sum later reduced to 132 billion (about 400 billion US), £22 billion (roughly 37.5 billion US dollars) at the time.

The bill would have been settled much earlier had it not been for the Great Depression in the 1920's.  And then this guy Adolf Hitler reneged on reparations during his reign.

The final payment of £59.5 million (80.8 million) will be made October 3.

NOW DON'T DO IT AGAIN!

http://ken_ashford.typepad.com/blog/2010/09/world-war-one-officially-ends-this-week.html