Similar to a teacher's salary

That's where society has gone wrong. On any rational grounds, those who directly contribute to basic human needs to allow the rest of us to do business should be very highly valued. That would include farmers, bakers, nurses, policemen and teachers, all of whom should be well-paid. Instead we underpay most of them while paying incompetent bankers millions. Why? Even before the crash it was obvious that most executives and bankers are not geniuses to justify such huge rewards. AFAICS there isn't much a modern CEO does that couldn't be done equally well by a competent sociologist who would be delighted to receive $200K.

For an answer, sociologists tell us that most human aspiration/behavior is driven by 6 broad categories of desire ranging from love and loyalty to fear, power and money. In corporate circles, love and finer motives are extinguished in pursuit of profit. Avaricious short-termism by shareholders has seen to that. The result seems almost designed to justify executives/bankers awarding themselves unreasonable rewards in pursuit of one of those other motives. Meanwhile highly competent teachers move to sales and marketing. Oh, well.

;-)