Crestfallen New York Times blubbers: Rising CEO pay is ‘unstoppable’

They're fit to be tied at the New York Times, where they've discovered to their horror that successful CEOs are still quite handsomely compensated. The whole thing is just so upsetting:

According to an updated analysis, the top 200 chief executives at public companies with at least $1 billion in revenue actually got a big raise last year, over all. The research, conducted for Sunday Business by Equilar Inc., the executive compensation analysis firm, found that the median 2012 pay package came in at $15.1 million -- a leap of 16 percent from 2011. So much for the idea that shareholders were finally getting through to corporate boards on the topic of reining in pay.

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At least the stock market returns generated by these companies last year exceeded the pay increases awarded to their chiefs. Still, at 19 percent in 2012, that median return was only three percentage points higher than the pay raise. In other words, it's still good to be king.

Well yes, it usually is. And of course, the funniest thing about this screed from the poor dears at the Times is their wailing about CEO pay being "unstoppable," as if it's a societal imperative that someone needs to stop it. Compensation arrangements between corporations and their CEOs are private agreements that are cause neither for government action nor for screeching from the nation's "newspaper of record." If certain CEOs are paid more than they're worth, that's a problem for their shareholders, but it's not some sort of social justice emergency. This nation will do a lot better when a lot more people are being well-compenstated for doing productive work that actually helps grow the economy. This includes a lot of work that can be done in productive sectors of the private economy. It includes very little that is done in the Times's beloved public sector. Tell you what, though: One CEO who probably doesn't deserve to be getting paid too well is Mark Thompson, the CEO of the New York Times Co., judging by recent performance. Maybe the writers at the Times think every business leader is as incompetent as their own. They really should get out more. To the rest of us, one person's prosperity is not a reason for others to collapse into hysterics, but rather to see opportunity and strive to be the next to grasp it. That is, however, a difficult thing to explain to people who trade in envy and resentment on a daily basis. No wonder our friends at the Times are so misty-eyed.