Along with the nonsense about price gouging comes complaints about gasoline companies “profiteering.” Here’s a question, where is the money that is needed to rebuild refining capacity and other oil, gas, and gasoline infrastructure in the gulf supposed to come from? If you said taxpayers or voluntary contributions, you’re wrong. If you said profits, you get a gold star. We should hope that the profits of gasoline refiners are soaring. The more profits are earned right now, the more resources will be available for rebuilding the lost capacity and infrastructure and the sooner that rebuilding will occur. The last thing we want is for oil companies to suffer the dramatic losses that the airline industry suffered after 9/11. These are losses that the airlines have yet to recover from. We want Exxon and Citgo, and unfortunately, yes, even the anti-oil oil company BP (which I think stands for “Berate Petroleum”) to earn as high profits as possible right now so that the recovery can go as quickly as possible.