[yuzi]

I see it as defending the free market economy. I don't think any of them deserve hundred million dollar pay checks, but really the supply/demand of talented CEOs is so out of whack that the pay scales have ballooned. Welcome to capitalism. What I don't understand is why this general problem with CEO pay has to degrade into targeted Mayer bashing.

[jordanb]

CEO pay has little to do with the free market and everything to do with the principle-agent problem.

In 1983 the average CEO was paid wages equal to 50 average employees. Today the ratio is over 300:1.

If this is the free market at work then our economy and society is doing something profoundly wrong to produce such an enormous shortfall in qualified CEOs. Clearly we need to identify what's wrong with our upper classes that they no longer seem to be able to produce qualified senior-executives. Maybe they're being educated improperly? Perhaps social problems endemic to that type of person can explain the executive skills gap? In the meantime, at the very least, we need to have a temporary guest worker program to ensure our companies aren't crippled by senior executive shortages.

[trhway]

>In 1983 the average CEO was paid wages equal to 50 average employees. Today the ratio is over 300:1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...

The government failed to do its job since 197x. The growing income disparity is the result of free market let run completely free by the government. It is the basic example from statistics 101 - in completely symmetric odds situation that thus looks fair at first ("free market"), the player with deepest pockets wins with higher probability. The government by not increasing minimum wage provided for much significant disparity between the "depth of pockets" and thus the resulting increasing income gap.

[malyk]

I see it as defending an "old boys club(now including women!)" who sit on tons of overlapping boards and conspire to "keep it in the family" and "reward" the "successful" businessperson.

The reality is that CEO pay isn't based on performance. its based on some bizarre dance done in the highest boardrooms designed to extract the most wealth possible for the 2 - 5 years someone is CEO regardless of how they run the company.

[johan_larson]

The dynamic seems to be a) if things are bad, we need to pay top dollar to keep valuable executive talent to fix it, and b) if things are good, we should shower rewards on the executives who made it happen. Heads I win, tails you lose. It's a nice place to be.

[yuzi]

Welcome to corporate America. I agree with you, but the people on this forum are not writing comments defending the old boys club when they suggest her pay is not abnormal in the market. If we want to change these things it requires changes in government and regulation so we need to lobby for that change.

[digler999]

you "dont understand" why the chief executive of a company should be targeted with criticism based on how said company performed ? So they should just get paid and not have any responsibilities whatsoever ?