When does the right to earn a profit in a free market become gouging?

When is the public allowed some remedy, legally or otherwise, especially when the product is a utility or an essential good?

start to complain.

Most states have laws that set limits on how much prices can increase after a natural disaster to prevent gouging.

Price gouging refers to a sharp, temporary increase in the price of items that are in high demand because of a civil emergency, without a generally-recognized justification or in breach of contract. The term is distinguished from profiteering by being short-term and localized, and by a restriction to essentials such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine and equipment needed to preserve life, limb and property. In many jurisdictions, price gouging is a felony.

In a market economy, laws against price gouging are justified as a valid exercise of the police power to preserve order during an emergency, and may be combined with anti-hoarding measures. The usual argument is fourfold.

The community as a whole may well possess sufficient stocks to sustain it through the emergency, provided that panic can be avoided. Sharp increases in price may trigger such panic.
When people's resources are strained by a situation beyond ordinary prudence, the corrective tendencies of the market are too slow and communication too uncertain.
In an emergency, ordinary legal protections are impractical. Thus, refusing to sell lumber at an advertised price may constitute fraud and refusing to honor a reservation may constitute a tort, but the harm is likely to be irreparable long before a case can be brought.
Regardless of theory, when people become desperate, public order becomes precarious. Emergency services are likely to be strained by both increased need and reduced capacity. Riots by otherwise law-abiding citizens could prove overwhelming.
Exceptions are generally made for price increases that can be justified in terms of increased cost of supply, transportation or storage. Statutes generally give wide discretion not to prosecute: in 2004, the State of Florida determined that one-third of complaints were unfounded, and a large fraction of the remainder were handled by consent decrees, rather than prosecution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouging

of necessary items increases during a declared disaster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging

implications, by extrapolation be the basis for counteracting gouging at a national level?

That the increase in gasoline (estimated in N.C to be 20-50c a gallon) should be considered price gouging?

say yes. We are in a state of crisis at home and abroad, so why are we allowing this gouging and profiteering without a whimper? It is the investors and the middlemen that are making out like bandidts here.

Mike McEntyre (D-NC) said on the local news tonight that he wants to cap gas prices and get some regulation into the situation before prices spiral out of controll

When BP/Exxon/Mobil/Texaco/Shell/Conoco decided that they want 80% PROFIT instead of 20%, that's "savvy business-sense" and an "investment opportunity"..:puke:

...by Republicans and Democrats

They should just not eat, bath, sleep, find dry clothes, freshwater for a month or three! It works in Iraq! :sarcasm: