CEO们该拿这么高的年薪吗？（在线收听）

When Julia Roberts makes a movie , she gets big bucks, more than 20 million dollars a film. That's okay. Her movies usually earn many times that. You could say she makes money the old-fashioned way, she earns it. But can the same be said for all those business executives who make millions? Are they really worth it? Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Disney, once made 576 million dollars in a single year. That's more than 2 million dollars every day he went to work, which breaks down to about 275, 000 dollars an hour for an eight-hour day. According to the Corporate Library , in 2004 , the highest paid CEO was Yahoo's Terry Semel, who hauled in close to 231 million dollars. That's equivalent to the combined average salaries of about 6, 000 American workers. And it's getting worse. The pay of the average worker remained almost flat from 1990 to 2004 while the average chief executive pay has risen from almost 3 million dollars to almost 12 million dollars, a raise of 400%.

While average American workers are having a tougher time making ends meet, CEOs are also getting perks. Who could forget ex-Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski's infamous 6000-dollar shower curtain, or his 15, 000-dollar umbrella stand in the shape of a 3-foot high poodle. We also found out that perks don't necessarily end with retirement. Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE had use of a corporate jet, a company-owed apartment overlooking Central Park, a limousine and a cook. In the world of CEOs, it seems the more money you make, the less money you should have to spend. To be fair, companies say we pay CEOs because they are worth it or we need to attract top talent. But there is often no connection between executive pay and corporate performance.

A 2004 Rutgers University study analysed more than 1, 500 U. S. companies over a ten-year period. It found no correlation between higher executive remuneration and bigger gains for shareholders. Wouldn't it be nice when execs say" show me the money" they could prove they earned it?