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[quote user="schlimm"] [quote user="schlimm"]Nationally, the ratio of CEO compensation to that of the average worker rose to: in 1982, 42:1; in 1990, 107:1; in 2004, 475:1.  By comparison the ratios in 2004 in Canada, Japan and the UK were 20:1, 11:1 and 22:1, respectively.[/quote]  Class envy?  Hardly.  In my career, I worked hard and made a pretty decent buck.  But I would have felt undervalued if I had been paid a small fraction of the CEO, such as 1/400th.  As a shareholder, it seems to me we are often overpaying the top execs.  As a citizen, I wonder what US CEO's have done to merit such a large variance from the compensation of their peers in other industrialized nations?  Those seem to me to be reasonable questions to ask that cannot be answered by merely invoking The Market as the answer. [/quote] Well if the market is not determining pay, what is?   <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> I can see these three reasons to object to the relatively high salaries of some people as follows: <o:p></o:p> 1)      You believe that, as a nation, if the highest salaries were lowered, it would leave more money for the rest of the people. 2)      You believe that, as a corporation, if the highest salaries were lowered, it would leave more money for the rest of the employees. 3)      You have personal resentment for people who have achieved more than you. 4)      You believe that if a salary is too high, the recipient will consume too much, thus threatening the sustainability of the planet. <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I cannot think of any other reasons.  The beliefs of items #1 and #2 conflict with free-market principles.  Item #3 is the personal emotion of envy.  Item #4 is a relatively new reason that has only been discovered during the last twenty years or so. <o:p></o:p> While some individuals might believe in one or more of these items, all four of these reasons are used to justify the advocacy of the now popular public policy to limit executive pay.  Certainly this policy has legs, and it is prancing proudly these days.   Maybe we need a brand new bureaucracy to establish the value of every type of work, and set the pay accordingly.  It would take all the guesswork out of deciding how much is too much for some people.
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