> CEO salary increases don't happen in a bubble - there has been an unprecedented increase in them while income growth in the middle class has stagnated horribly.

Since you bring up stagnating wages, it sounds like you are suggesting that the reason middle class workers aren't being paid more is because the money is going to bigger CEO pay. Do you think that if the CEO was paid less, then that money would go to the workers? Because it wouldn't, it would go towards higher profits for the company and so more money for the shareholders. The shareholders, who ultimately decide how much the CEO gets paid. This is the problem some of us have with debates about CEO compensation. It ultimately boils down to complaining about how people choose to spend their own money.

Blame globalization for that, not absurd CEO pay. There are now many people that are willing to do what were blue collar and middle class jobs for much, much less, and they'll do it just as well. There are fewer and fewer natural reasons for companies to pay US workers the premium they command.

How globalization isn't applicable to CEO?

At least partly because it's a very rare and specialized skillset - you basically have to have run large divisions in large companies or other large organizations, or been the CEO of a smaller company to be considered for the top spot at one of the large companies that pay these outlandish sums.

A good CEO can be worth an incredible amount of money to a large company, which is why they command such amazing pay. Just think, how much is it worth to Apple to have Steve Jobs as CEO vs. someone else? His leadership helped add hundreds of billions of dollars to their market cap. Naturally, the owners of the company are going to be willing to pay him a lot to help keep his interest.

CEOs are a popular scapegoat because they're easy to identify and their rewards are outsized, but they're not the actual problem, and it's counterproductive to focus on their compensation.