Requiem for a right wing sacred cow. If was it a fatted calf?

[Toucano]

Everyone's familiar with the exponential rise in the disparity of executive compensation and the average salary.

No matter how inherently unfair, undemocratic, and irresponsible it has been for companies to hold real wages stagnant and pay top executives up to 3000 times the average worker's salary (http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/database.cfm?tkr=CHK&pg=1), the response to criticism of this practice has never varied.

"We have to pay top dollar to attract the best talent. We have to compete for a very tiny pool of business geniuses to guide our company to record profits and increase shareholder value." Or something to that effect.

Remember about six months ago when the financial industry was the focus of populist ire against greed and excess? Bankers threatened to "leave the industry" if governments made any attempt to reel in their obscenely large compensation packages. Their lapdogs in the press set out repeating this mafia-like-mantra until practically every sensible person was weak from pointing out the absurdity integrated with the threat.

Now comes Tony Hayward's testimony last week before congress. The Tony Hayward who received a 41% pay raise in 2009 to $5.94 million (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7377858/BP-defends-chief-executive-Tony-Haywards-40pc-pay-rise.html), presided over a 40 percent decline in profit for BP, but also oversaw $4 billion in "cost cuts".

This is the "top talent" they're talking about? Despite the committee having shared it's questions with Mr. Hayward in advance, this genius of industry was seemingly unable to answer the simplest of questions pertaining to the operation of the corporation he was in charge of.

The next time the question arises about the vital necessity of stratospheric executive compensation, I hope you'll all remember Mr. Hayward. The greedy recklessness of "pennywise and pound foolish" that he epitomizes should not be allowed to fade from public consciousness.