Besides, excessive compensation is a symptom not a problem. Ask yourself WHY shareholders aren't outraged. The comp is excessive because they allow it. CEOs and compensation board members are not losing their jobs over it. Shareholders don't even complain. As you've noted, they're more likely to be apologists.

Your mistake is in thinking these CEOs simply run a business and are compensated for it. In reality
Corporate takeover specialists began making the markets "efficient" in the Reagan era, with bank financed leveraged buy outs of any company with assets greater than its market price.

That was the beginning of the end for Wall Street.

Think about it. Once upon a time Wall Street was where people went to invest in companies. Companies were expected to have prudent cash reserves. To be worth AT LEAST the market price otherwise their stock was "junk." Now, no company can survive Wall Street UNLESS its worth LESS than its price.

No one can honestly expect, or reasonably believe, that they're investing in a company. Every company listed is worth less than its price. No one "invests," everyone speculates. The only way to profit is by selling your overpriced shares to someone else, preferably for even more than you paid. Wall Street the Ponzi scheme.

Big name CEOs and their comp are part of the con. Part of convincing the next guy to buy your worthless shares. That's why the "owners" aren't complaining. Why getting rid of the comp and trashing CEOs' celebrity and elitism really will hurt Wall Street.

Until we return Wall Street to an investment market instead of a Ponzi scheme your outrage, though understandable, is pointless, even counterproductive. Its like attacking 40's celebs for their excessive lifestyle when Hollywood carefully built those "star" images to market pictures.

CEOs aren't worth it, but shareholders want their "stars" for the same reason Hollywood did. Its all about image. THAT'S what they're really selling, not product.

And its no coincidence that if you really are a productive, fiscally prudent company, the banks will finance LBOs against you (and reap interest windfalls.) Or you can commit all your assets in the name of "efficiency," go into debt, borrowing short term (paying banks interest) for routine expenses. (And as we see now have your business at the mercy of banks' willingness to extend credit.)

Funny, how its a win-win for banks, while nearly everyone else loses. (Thanks to creative lobbyists and corrupt politicians quaint terms like extortion and usury need no longer apply.)

The markets need massive, systemic reform, particularly banks. But don't expect Wall Street to be interested. The members of a Ponzi (shareholders) never want change until they've gotten THEIR big money (or if they already have and think they can get more.) And those running the Ponzi (Wall Street banks and securities firms) can't afford to let it end.

So while I heart your CEO frustration. They're just bit players, front men. Its the producers who are picking all our pockets. The game was afoot long before these CEOs took office.

The institutions themselves are the problem. Being outraged at CEO behavior, as if they were victimizing their own institutions, isn't just wrong, its dangerously wrong. Its the institutions that deserve our outrage. The problems we face are all institutional. CEO comp doesn't hurt us. Wall Street lobbyists and policies are killing us.

...sorry. Ranting must be contagious.