DOES REGULATORY RISK MATTER? Megan McArdle writes: “I’m frankly rather shocked that Steve Pearlstein would say something like this in a radio interview. . . . I myself have long been skeptical of the Amity Shlaes thesis on the Great Depression–but not skeptical enough to make fun of CEO’s fighting a collapse in aggregate demand and a hostile new regulatory environment for being a bunch of unimaginative ******s who spend too much time listening to the boys down at the country club. If there’s one thing that business school taught me, it’s that running a company is really hard, and that most people who think they could do better are merely displaying their ignorance of what’s involved.” Personally, I’m finding Shlaes’ thesis more compelling all the time, as I see it demonstrated in the present tense. . . .