The alternative to the living wage.

[Heywood]

I think CEO pay is too high, however I think it is more of a nuisance than a real problem.

That's because you haven't thought it through. Forget "salaries" for these assholes. Far too many are given stock options as part of their compensation package which gives them an incentive to manipulate the stock price for their own benefit. There is no long-term planning in the corporate world. We're lucky if they look beyond the next quarterly earnings report so they can figure out if they want to cash-in or not.

I have been compensated with stock options and they've always come with vesting periods. Usually 20-25% vest each year. For instance if in 2010 I received 1000 options, 1 year later I could exercise 200 of them. The next year 400 of them, the next year 600 and so on. If I wanted to exercise all of them I would have to wait 4-5 years.

Since you are always 4-5 years away from being able to exercise all your options, manipulating stock price for short term gain means torching the value of your unvested options.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that CEO's never play shenanigans with the books. Some do....but most do not. The claim there is no long term planning in the corporate world is simply false.