Isn't It Ironic?

Wall Street Journal headline: "France Credits Deregulation for Cushioning Its Economy". Article here for subscribers.

The truth is obviously more complicated than that, and France's economy appears to be decaying just as everyone else's is, but that headline still gives me a chuckle. It's worth keeping in mind when you hear that the days of capitalism are over and gone: the story of this crisis is still being written, and the nature of the causes will be debated for decades. In any case, two things are almost certainly true: so far the crisis has not necessarily been milder for more regulated economies, and there is plenty of blame to be shared by government regulators and market "self-regulators".