[dbussone]

Originally Posted by pbkmaine

To me, it's not whether CEOs are good people or bad people. It's about the rate at which CEO pay has risen since I was a kid, and the effect it has had on society. In the 1960's, CEO pay was about 20 times that of the average worker. Now it's about 300 times. I think these articles are questioning the appropriateness of this kind of pay disparity. Is anyone's job worth so much money? Europeans believe a large middle class is the key to a stable society. I think many are seeing in this country the erosion of the middle class. Is income becoming more like a barbell of rich and poor, with fewer in the middle? I don't have any answers myself. I believe that hard work should bring rewards. But some of the rewards seem out of proportion to me.

Please go back and re-read the post by Rags123. He notes a number of important points., including the fact that the AFL-CIO study included only 350 CEO salaries. That there are hundreds of thousands of companies in the U.S. That the average CEO salary is $178,000. That the average worker makes $35,000. And therefore the AVERAGE CEO only makes about 5 times what the average worker makes. It is true that a small percentage make extremely high sums of money. It is also true that the AFL-CIO report is extremely misleading in its efforts to paint all CEOs with the same paintbrush. Rags sources were the WSJ and BLS.