Sky-high CEO pay is tied to what peers get, not how company does

[hal2kilo]

You know that's not true for a huge percentage of corporations, right? The vast majority of shares in a company are nonvoting ones, and frequently the shareholders have exactly zero input into what the CEO is paid. The board of directors is frequently made up of people who are part of the same group as the CEO, not exactly dispassionate arbiters.

Sure shareholders could sell a stock if they wanted to protest a CEO's pay, but that's a pretty huge oversimplification. In practice, shareholders have almost no effective way of indicating acceptance or disapproval of CEO compensation.

Stock voting proxies make nice fire starters.