On the front page of The Sun

'Cus none of them are single mothers on the run from a war zone?

....that $84,000 a month is a typo! $1.08m a year for doing nothing is just too unbelievable,

Sadly, in todays world where greed is king and members of that closed boys club regularly award each other obscene salaries while looking down up the rest of society with complete contempt, where the humble taxpayer foots the bill when these modern day Gordon Geckos, wallets burgeoning from selling things they don't have while contributing nothing to further our society, finally knock down the house of cards which we laughingly call a financial system.

Nice work if you can get it. Pay for fail. So you actually get more money if you funk up and leave than if you "perform"? Perverse incentive or what?

Maybe I should try that? No, it won't work, I'm not a captain of industry. Recent years have seen the gap between the lowest paid and the highest paid increase in many private sector companies in the anglo-saxon world. It is interesting to note that the gap between rich and poor seems to be linked to national happiness. It would not surprise me if the same were true for organisations. And it would not surprise if there were a link between productivity, efficiency and quality as well.

Pay has risen faster than inflation for many of these people whereas for the rest of us, the pressure is to accept less than inflationary pay increases, especially as it looks as if major recession is just around the corner. The belief that success can be bought by bringing a new CEO has lead to an inflationary spiral. Putting aside some industries, business has done well in the last few years, mainly due to a growing economy, rather than the fairy dust of magic CEOs.

It remains to be seen whether the current economical crisis will put an end to this or if the justification for CEO, etc, pay rises will change. I can well imagine a scenario where their is an inflationary spiral of pay for CEO who have "demonstrated" fail avoidance.

In fact, they are aliens trapped on this planet and need the money to fund a secret project to build a spaceship to return them to their home planet - ignoring the fact that they were kicked off by the other disgruntled inhabitant for excessive wage demands.

As to how much these dangling ladyparts would have been paid had they made a significant profit?

like girlie men, any one of you and indeed I would take that money just like he has, and I would have a nice big house with a gym and fly round the world on my lear jet and I wouldn't give a flying f**k about people like us dribbling on about people like them on a computer forum.

Call it greed, call it what you like, it only those that don't who cry about those that do.

pay isn't linked to performance, its linked to the size of the company. CEO's grow companies so their pay is a relatively small percentage of revenue, and thus not too significant to shareholders. Then it doesn't matter what they get paid.

The larger a company becomes, the less significant is any one individual, be you customer, supplier, shareholder or CEO. It makes corporate and managerial greed so much easier to get away with.

No.

Why?

Because as a shareholder, THAT'S MY MONEY THEY'RE SPENDING.

I *OWN* that company.

As a customer, part of the cost of the kit I buy is going on that twat's salary for being a useless fuckwit. THAT'S MY MONEY AGAIN!!!

So no, I won't stop bitching you misanthropic self-centered opinionated cumstain on societies underpants.

PS P. Lee: does the CEO pay go down when they reduce the size of the company? Oddly (pfft) no.

Wow, can you be a more arrogant and greedy fucktard? Seriously... Believe it or not, there are many of us who would either: A) -NOT- take the money, or B) take the money, keep some for ourselves, then donate the rest to charity. Not everyone is greedy.

Personally, I'd probably go with option B. I have no problems admitting that I'd love to be paid a few million dollars. I'd buy myself a nice house (and by "nice", I mean 3 bedrooms, an office, and a media room; I do not mean a 57-room mansion with four garages), I'd pay off my parents' mortgage (or buy them a different house), I'd buy my sister a house, and made sure we all live comfortably (note: "comfortably", not "life of luxury"). Then I'd take the rest and either give it to charity or set up programs locally to directly help those who need it.

This may come as quite a shock to you, Gareth, but I don't WANT to be rich. I want to live comfortably, that's it. I don't want a house I can't clean myself, I don't want servants, I don't want multiple cars, I don't want a jet... There are millions (perhaps billions) of people worse off than me. So as long as I'm living comfortably (and I feel greedy enough thinking that way), I'd rather give my excess to those who need it more.

Heh, I guess that should be more like Substandard & Piss-Poor.

Can't see how a $74m / $29bn ratio can get them to the top of the list.

The salary might be higher, but if you're taking the earnings/losses ratio as a measure then they're not even in the same league as Mr Fuld who, in 2007, earnt $45m but managed to screw up a company causing over $600bn in losses. ;)