Oil Companies Have a Right to Their Profits
By David Holcberg (Houston Chronicle, Nov. 6, 2005; New York Sun, Nov. 8, 2005; Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 17, 2005)

Oil companies have a right to their record profits.
 
The oil companies earned their profits honestly, and have a right to keep them. Their profits are a just reward for decades of investment and production. 
 
If politicians are really concerned with the effect on the public of high oil and gas prices, they could do many things about it. They could cut gasoline taxes, eliminate regulations mandating gasoline blends, and free energy companies to drill at will. These measures would increase the supply of gasoline and reduce its cost--without violating the property rights of oil companies.
 
Oil companies, in pursuing their own profit, provide us with an invaluable product, without which our modern civilization would suffer immensely. We should be grateful for their good work, and our government should protect--not expropriate--their well-deserved profits.