Let me preface this with the normal arguments
(1) the skill set of American public CEOs is 1 in a 100 million; only a few humans on Earth can do this work and none of them live in Europe (ex UK), Australia, or Asia. That is why the CEOs running large companies in those countries make a fraction of American (and some financial type British) CEOs. Only Americans have the skill set so hence must be paid.
(2) the skill set of these people have expanded greatly in the past few decades. When CEOs only made 70x what the average American in the 1970s that showed CEOs were not pulling their weight in that era. Now that it is over 400:1 it shows they have really gotten that much better than the lackeys who used to run corporate America 30+ years ago. Let us applaud this adjustment.
(3) It's a free market; as in a small group of board directors compete with other small groups of board directors in ever upward compensation that has little to do with performance and a lot to do with rubbing backs. After all many board members are former politicians and/or executives at other companies. That's how a free market works - duh.
(4) CEOs in private companies are likewise weak and frankly close to incompetent; hence paid appropriate to their inability to feed at public troughs... err, to land jobs at US public corporations. By being paid similar to public European CEOs, the private American CEOs are shown what they truly are: socialists who only feed on the state.
(5) You can't just look at 1 year; maybe compensation was lower (chuckle) last year or will be (cackle) next year. Taking any 1 year of compensation alone is clearly taking data out of context. (dogma)
(6) CEOs are not motivated by things normal mortals are - like pride, putting food on the table, or providing a roof over their head. Without these pay packages you will simply have completely unmotivated folk in $5000 suits who are not productive. We can't have that.
(7) What would you have us do? Turn into the Europeans (ex British) and become (gasp) socialist by setting pay at some ratio like 7 to 1, 10 to 1, 50 to 1 versus the common peasant worker? That's unAmerican - we don't do socialism*.
*Unless you count corporate socialism where the peasants give their money to bail out corporations or provide subsidies. Then it's acceptable and no longer called socialism, I believe the term then is "capitalism".
(8) If you don't pay these people, they will take their skills and MOVE! To somewhere like the UK! (at least if they are in the banking field) And if they are not paid in the UK they will MOVE! To ... (crickets chirping) ... well they will find a place. (is Croatia hiring? UAE? Antarctica?) So don't you dare stop paying them, or they... will.... move. Don't ask any questions over and above that. Just be scared of the thought and empty your wallet into the receptacle.
(9) If you are unhappy or (as the blog writer apparently is) unAmerican (codeword for European) and can only resort to class warfare, you can walk with your feet. When you sell your 300 shares, the CEOs will notice and only THEN can we change behavior. Try it right now - sell your 300 shares of company XYZ in your Ameritrade account. I assume the CEO will be in fetal position within minutes begging corporate directors to rescind the handouts... err, payouts.
