Ah, look at that, I totally misread where you were going! ;-) In my experience, regulations and crazy laws aren't really a competitive advantage or disadvantage because all of the market players are playing by similar rules. I'm not saying that there's no negative effect to bad regs and laws, but the costs are shared fairly equally.

I've never worked at a business that was cut off at the knees by new laws or regs. I'm sure it's happened, but I'm not convinced it's common. What I have witnessed though, many times at many employers, is pure self-inflicted complexity. The did-they-even-consider-the-cost kind of complexity that is nightmarish to implement and hampers future changes.

As an IT pro I can't do much about the laws and regulations, but I can advise and design business systems in ways to avoid complexity traps and help accommodate more sane business processes.