10 CEOs Who Earned a Year's Salary in an Hour

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Executive compensation has become a hot-button issue and with good reason -- it's utterly ridiculous. According to data compiled by the Institute for Policy Studies (made available on the AFL-CIO's Web site), the average American CEO earned 319 times the salary of the average U.S. worker in 2008. As hard as it is to believe, this pay ratio has dropped over the past decade -- in 2000, the average CEO earned 525 times the average worker's salary.

Until executive pay falls in line with historical levels (in 1980, the ratio sat at a reasonable 42 times), index investors should expect anemic returns while government spending grows at the expense of private job creation.

Consider the following:

1. A reduction in the CEO pay multiple to the 1980 level would allow the average U.S. company to hire an additional 277 workers. This reduction, applied across the Wilshire 5000 index, would create nearly 1.4 million jobs.
2. Executive compensation paid in salary and bonuses is taxed at the highest possible rate. These tax receipts, paid to the federal government, are being used to fund unemployment benefits and stimulus spending.

Think about that for a minute. Instead of hiring prospective workers, executives are (indirectly) paying the same people to stay at home -- unemployed. Alternatively, if an executive is compensated with a massive stock award (rather than salary), long-term shareholders (including 401(k) investors and pensioned employees) are "pickpocketed" by the equity dilution.

It's hard to imagine a greater destruction of economic utility and shareholder equity.

To solve this paradox of capitalism, a grassroots change must occur -- shareholders of publicly traded companies must be involved in ratifying and regulating executive compensation. For progressive investors hoping to make a change, the best course of action is to favor companies with strong insider ownership (look for a history of open-market stock purchases rather than exercised stock options), shun stocks with compensation policies they don't condone or understand and always cast your "say on pay" via a proxy ballot.

According to Forbes' 2008 CEO compensation data , the following 10 companies have rewarded their CEOs with tens of thousands of dollars hourly. Some of these compensation packages may be deserved, but likewise are notable enough to deserve investor scrutiny.