The costs outweigh the consequences however with respect to cheating and lying.

Can you back this up at all? How many billions did the S&L deregulation cost taxpayers? The airline bailout after deregulation? Enron’s practices after deregulation of the financial services industry?

The alternative to free markets are over regulated and inefficient entities which can not compete in a global marketplace.

Once again, I don’t think you can back this up at all. For one, there are several alternatives to so-called “free markets,” not just the one you describe.

Liberals are loathe to enforce laws and regulations already on the books, why enact more ?

Another simply false statement. Lack of enforcement of regulations has been a Republican hallmark for a couple decades, now. How can anyone look at HUD and EPA under Bush and argue otherwise?

There are plenty of reasons to cheer free-markets, but you haven’t listed any of them, Greg.

The alternative to free markets are over regulated and inefficient entities which can not compete in a global marketplace. Regulation is also a slippery slope and is frequently employed by liberals with an agenda, I suspect, that has little to do with prosperity for anyone, much less everyone.

Liberals are loathe to enforce laws and regulations already on the books, why enact more ?

There is a nascent straw man not mentioned which is applicable here…that liberals support the US.

No one could honestly claim that.

This is a straw man. No one ever claimed that’s how things are or should work.

Here’s where you and I differ. I think that is how the market ends up working, because (for whatever odd reason) free-market champions don’t seem to accept the reality that people lie and cheat when they compete with each other for money.