It's rather funny watching a debate on CNBC about executive compensation, which as is typically the case is between someone screaming "MAGIC MARKET FAIRY MAKE PONY" and someone trying to explain that, no, it's a bit more complicated than that.
Top executive pay is set by insiders who have stacked the deck in their favor while doing everything they can do to insulate themselves from interference from those pesky shareholders, otherwise known as the owners. Any talk of reforming corporate governance is about making the magic market fairy work better, not worse, by aligning the interests of the top executives with the interests of the shareholders. Whether or not those interests are properly aligned is the question, not whether meddling regulators want to kill the magic market fairy.
