CEO pay saw big jumps in 2010

That is absolutely rediculous amounts of pay for ANY position.  Even the best CEO in the world shouldnt be paid more than 5 million per year.  Especially when you consider that most people have never even heard of them.  How much could they be adding to the bottom line that justifies that level of pay?  Take a look at Tom Ryan of CVS.  That company has cut its store personel down to two per shift in the general store from 4 per shift 4 years ago.  The stock has lingered and overall they have lost ground to Walgreens and Walmart in the drug business.  Walgreens by comparisons has between 4 - 5 employees on the floor per shift.  No wonder CVS is losing ground, they are losing the customer service battle, but its ok Tom Ryan walked off into retirement with plenty of cash.  Every board in america should cap CEO pay at 5 million, unless your talking about the founder of a company. 

Stop complaining about those who have achieved the Dream and try to attain it for yourself!

People who have standards don't want to be a part of a corrupt system that continually takes advantage of others. So, the solution to you, is to be just as bad?

1) These wages, we're talking about the top 0.00001%. The truly vastly wealthy. They are *rarely* self-made. You imagine some people who simply started a small business themselves and made it. That is such a rare situation in the S&P500.

Almost all small business owners will never be in this club. They won't be allowed because people in the club generally try as hard as possible to not let other people in.

2) The pay is manipulated pay. Generally it is in the form of options. And not just street options the rest of us can by, but in the cases of CEOs special options that give them lots of advantages over people even in the option market.

It's actually leveraged against the market capitalization of the companies. Equity markets are fun. They've essentially taken all productive earnings of companies and selected who they will distribute them to.

3) They've done psychological studies on this. They might not be evil, but CEOs start to believe their own myth with money. They've even done these studies over years and as those peoples wealth grew and they actually change what they percieve.

a) They start to discount the opportunities that may have been *given* to them, time when they simply got lucky, times when other people helped them. They start to believe "I did this all on my own"

b) they start to develop an attitude that other people (many of whom are working very hard) are simply lazy

c) They have less empathy for others situations in general

4) Simple point.

*Human beings are self interested* *In today's world, wealth is the ultimate power* -combine those two ideas. *Of course* CEOs are manipulating the situation in their own interest, and that can and does come at the expense of others. Quit denying it.

You really think an Apple is sitting around and going, "you know, let's play fair with our small busineess competitors or new innovators, let's not use our cash to stop them, courts to harrass them, our banking connections to deny them, etc, etc, etc"? NAIVE.

The only thing that concerns, (pi$$e$ me off) , about CEO's receiving bonus' along with the ones who are connected to companies who received bail out money, is, what is the condition of their companies? I mean, if employees have been layed off, or haven't received a pay raise in over a year, than I think its outragious! If a company experiences such a profit, than why not reward the employees?   

Who do you think these guys get this pay?  They have their buddies on their board and their buddies have them on their board.  Yes they work for multiply companies.  Then they vote for their own raises.  The stock holders have no say in it.  The Mutual fund promotes this as they look for the last quarter return not the future return.  It used to be that executives were rewarded for good performance.  Now they are rewarded for good number.  Forget about tomorrow but look at the last quarter.  The executive lay off productive employees and prevented necessary purchases, but the numbers look good on paper so their bonus are high.  The next quarter the plant is screwed but the executive has moved onto a new position or waves a new flag but pushes the blame off onto the small guy.

As a lifelong Republican I find it hard to continue to vote this way.  The person making $500,000 plus a year does NOT produce any jobs, they line their pockets.  Jobs are produce by Corporations with people with values at the helm.

So, are you implying that companies such as Apple should share all of its intellectual property rights with every relevant small business in an effort to 'play fair'?

Did I say anything of that sort? NOOOOOOO.

The point is simple. Even if you have a successful product, and pursue it as a small company. Larger players will do vastly unethical things to stop you at every turn. So much so, that even hard workers (who according to some are apparently lazy) will fail and be shut out.

Who knows who they have in their back pocket, but don't be naive enough to pretend these things don't happen. Mega companies can get the government to lean certain ways, they have the armies of lawyers who can shut down other companies by just flooding the legal system (or getting the government to cut off the legal system from smaller players), even use connections to shut down capital to other companies.

Some of these things may just be unethical, but some are actually quite illegal. But more to the point, the "notion" that everyone who isn't successful just isn't trying is nonsense. People get squashed by mega companies all the time.

You make statements alluding to such nonsense and yet have the audacity to call my thoughts 'naive'?

It wasn't alluding to anything like that at all. You're making up your own implications that I never alluded.

There's nothing in my statement that implies any company should give proprietary information to other companies. What I imply is that they use the abilities of wealth, influence in government, manipulation of courts, and powerful connection to place unfair and at times even illegal durress on small companies.

So your entire thesis that people who aren't getting mega wealthy simply aren't trying is nonsense because there are many trying very hard, the system is used against them often times to crush them.

This doesn't even get into the personal level. Which means the battle of politics at such mega companies. Why is a company like GE paying the CEO mega millions while demanding the innovative minds that keep it running get by on maybe 100k for PHD engineers. Because they have the power to do it and keep it that way.

Go ahead and tell me how that PHD Engineer is so lazy making his 100k and not being able to get into the CEO seat.