Michael Brush has recently published "4 ways you can fight greedy CEO’s" in MSN Company Focus. His report about the amounts paid CEO’s is shocking. Here are five of his examples:

1. IAC/InterActiveCorp’s CEO Barry Diller was paid $295 million

2. Capital One Financial CEO Richard Fairbank received $249 million through stock options

3. Nabors Industries CEO Eugene Isenberg was paid $203 million in pay, bonus, options and stock

4. Yahoo CEO Terry Semel collected $183 million

5. KB Homes chief Bruce Karaz took home $156 million

The AFL/CIO website, "corporate watch," says the average CEO of a Standard and Poor’s 500 company made $13.51 million on average last year. It points out that a reasonable and fair compensation system for executives is fundamental to long term corporate benefit. But, the boards of directors of corporations are supposed to exercise a fiduciary duty to protect the interests of the shareholders. They too often have become the rubber stamp for the greedy executive. The pay bonanza comes at the expense of the shareholders and the employees. The scandal of golden parachutes for executives, the back dating of stock options and the cooking of the books at corporations like Enron are the result of the boards not doing their job. For example, see my report of December 9, 2006 regarding the exorbitant golden parachute given to Lee F. Raymond, CEO of Exxon Mobile Corporation. When an political administration works to remove restraints on big business and the regulators began to look the other way at corporate business, greed is the inevitable result.