That is, there are far more small companies that are run by their founders as CEO than there are GEs or Microsofts being run by some "overpaid" come-lately executive. A lot of those CEOs pay all their employees first, then live with what's left, which might be less than zero in a bad year. And what about the NFL player's union allowing top QBs to make 20+ times what the rookie reserve long snapper makes? Or the rookie reserve snapper making 20+ times more than the janitor who cleans the end zone toilets? If we capped pay for all sorts of people at about $250K (10x poverty wage), we'd have to get $1B in tax revenue from everyone else. Remember that people in the top 10% pay 70% of all the tax revenues--that's people making more than $250K.

Under this sort of rule, Tom Cruise doesn't get $20M per flick, Tom Brady doesn't make $20M/year, and Oprah is not rtaking in close to $100M every year.