Many Americans are appalled at the amount of money that CEO's are paid. The CEO of General Motors recently took a 50% pay cut, as many salaried workers took a 30 to 50% pay cut one industry watcher recently stated. Of the salaried workers also gave up some of their benefits. US CEO's compared with their European and Japanese counterparts are paid often 5 times as much.

Apparently they are getting away with this because the shareholders are not causing issue with it, the shareholders own the company, if they were upset with this they would make a stink and change it. I agree that CEO's under perform and then are often over paid. I believe pay should be tied to performance and be reasonable. If a CEO is so great then he would be smarter to start his own company and then he could pay himself whatever he choses, but public companies are owned by the shareholders.

Lately it seems that many of these CEO's have had their pay and options increase to an alarming rate and the shareholders seem to put up with this. A lot of who gets picked to be the CEO has to do with which schools attended and/or happening to be in the right place, working hard at the right times.

Personally I have observed that "most" but certainly not all of these CEO's are really lacking in world knowledge, even the inner workings of their own industries. I am often surprised as I occasionally run across them in hotel lobbies or traveling and then I am so under whelmed. Scary stuff. But I suppose a lot of being a CEO is about delegation and finding the right team too? They are an interesting group to study. I recommend reading the books "From Good to Great" and "Built to Last." To their [CEO's] credit there are some kick ass, intelligent, get it done CEO's out there with vision, strength of character and the inner will of ten men. What is interesting is that often they do better outside of the running of the company and better on the board than CEO. Interesting case studies really. Consider this in 2006.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/