Argument for 100% inheritance tax... retrospective!

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | George Monbiot: Governments aren't perfect, but it's the libertarians who bleed us dry: "He took up his post - which was previously held by his father, Viscount Ridley - in 2004. Under his chairmanship, the Economist notes, Northern Rock 'pushed an aggressive business model to the limit, crossing its fingers and hoping that liquidity would always be there'. It was allowed to do so because it was insufficiently regulated by the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority. When his libertarian business model failed, Ridley had to go begging to the detested state. If the government and its parasitic bureaucrats had not been able to use taxpayers' money to clear up his mess, thousands of people would have lost their savings. Northern Rock would have collapsed, and the resulting panic might have brought down the rest of the banking system. The £16bn bailout is not the end of the matter. Last week the Treasury granted Northern Rock's customers a new tax break. Now one of the north-east's leading businessmen, Sir Michael Darrington, is calling for the bank's full-scale nationalisation in order to prevent further crises. So much for the virtues of unregulated free enterprise."