Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Pondering CEO salaries, a Paper of Re-CORD colyumnist invents an excuse:

Baseball players also make outsize salaries, as do actors and rock stars. You could easily make the argument that their pay is also socially corrosive — part of the growing gap between rich and poor — and even unfair given how little teachers make by comparison. But even many of the same people who think C.E.O.’s are paid too much don’t take the same position about these other highly paid professions.

Why not? The reason, I’m convinced, is that we feel confident that they are being paid what the market says they’re worth.

And I'm convinced given the recent fiscal performance of certain actors and rock stars that they are paid too much. Likewise I'm convinced most sports fans are not happy with their charges' ransoms and are less apt to shrug them off as they hear stories of dog-fighting impresarios and steroid abusers. So why should we hold CEOs any different -- unless of course we're news hacks, having largely invented and supported their cult?