I don't have time right now to read the whole article you posted.
CEO pay should be decided upon by boards and shareholders, not by the government.
You're not going to make 6 figures or even mid 5 figures these days bagging groceries at Walmart or flipping burgers. You have to move up in the company, move on to a more lucrative occupation, or go out and start your own company if you want to make lots of money.
The people who risk the most should be rewarded the most. But one factor I do look at when deciding to invest in a company or not is if the CEO and other top managers pay themselves ridiculously high guaranteed base salaries, spend company money excessively on executive "perks", have things such as "tenure", etc.
Very few low level employees will choose stock or options in lieu of cash, even for things like bonuses and other incentives.
If a CEO is the majority shareholder of a company, he can pay himself whatever he wants. I can choose to invest elsewhere or work elsewhere if I think he's overpaying himself.
Shareholders and responsible boards of public companies will generally want for management to have a healthy interest in buying company stock, and also for management to limit their base pay, expenses, and cash comp to reasonable levels.
Many companies are shit, and many CEOs are kings of shit. Invest elsewhere or work elsewhere.
And if it's a private company he owns 100% of, he can pay himself as he sees fit. Of course if it's a small or growing company in it's early stages, he'd probably be stupid to pay himself a 7 or 8 figure base salary... and really stupid to pocket anywhere near any and all company profits as bonuses or whatever. He's smart to put most profits back into the company.
what all this means is that executives started gaming the system in the mid 1990s
