The New York Times reports that the average CEO pay is now $10 million a year, up 13 percent from 2004. Raise your hand if you got a 13 percent raise in the last year. Not a lot of hands, is my guess. While the CEOs are facing painful decisions about whether to buy a third home in Aspen or upgrade the private jet, the average household income declined, health benefits are wasting away like anorectics, and as for pensions – well, that’s an archaic term you can still probably find in a dictionary.

Even a few CEOs have started speaking out about their obscene levels of pay, and the Conference Board – a pro-business research group – admits that CEO pay has become “de-linked” from performance, meaning that the company may tank but those nearly million dollar monthly paychecks keep rolling in, to be followed by platinum parachutes.