FTR, here's my view on executive pay. It's out of whack and that's because corporate responsibility is out of whack. The SC ruled that a corp is effectively a person, basically due to it being run and operated by people. The courts have also ruled that a corp, by law, has to operate in the best interests of its' shareholders, i.e. the corp needs to make money, the bottom line. It's the CEOs job to do that, nothing else matters. the community does not matter, humans do not matter, plants do not matter, trees do not matter, that corp must, while acting within the law, operate to make more and more profits.
CEO pay is directly tied to profits, I think that is where the problem lies, the pay needs to be tied to incentives other than the stockholders solely.
This graphic highlights how fundamental the relationship is between executive pay and bottom line, if you run a business there are 2 ways to increase the bottom-line, sell more and/or slash costs
