Or, should the free market prevail.

I see a lot of tweets and blogs that excoriate executives for excessive compensation. However, don't executives get paid exactly what they are "worth" to the board and company?

Realize, that I'm not talking bout their "worth" as a human being. Money does not and should not be used to reward value as a human being.

Salaries, bonuses and other compensation are there to incentivize (yes, it is a word according to Webster) and value a job/role in an organization.

I went back to search for this great article written by Thomas Sowell re: executive comp at townhall.com

The idea that CEOs are paid what they are worth is based on the false myth of an efficient market nytimes.com

Check out the Sowell piece. It is really short and blows a hole in the NYT logic (not by name but via ideas). Private companies that are using their own pocketbooks pay even more for executives than public companies.

It would be folly to believe that anyone can understand ALL of the factors that drive pricing in the executive comp market (just like any market). In fact, that is the purpose of money. To put a price on resources that have alternative uses. Price fixing tends to wreck things. Ceilings and floors create artificial shortage and surplus.

Millions of decisions (or at least thousands of decisions in the case of publicly traded companies in the U.S.) will be made for various reasons. Some are looking for a good deal; others are looking for celebrity CEO's to drive interest in their brand; still others may be looking for relationships to key customers; and so on.

All of these decisions are about an unpredictable future and they may or may not pan out.

One thing that I think would help executive comp practices is the disclosure of total compensation on that pretty front page of the annual report ... just under the signatures of the Chair and CEO.

"I'm executive ABC and chair XYZ ... and we approve this compensation..."

"CEO compensation is even higher in corporations owned by a few giant investment firms, as distinguished from corporations owned by thousands of individual stockholders." Let's see the evidence.

Sure, I can see PE firms paying high when they are dissecting a company to be flipped. There is also some logic to paying high at a promising startup where CEOs are basically getting paid in equities due to lack of cash flow. They take huge risks and get paid accordingly.

CEOs of established companies aren't taking the same kinds of risk, at least not over the short-term of their typical compensation.

Price fixing does tend to wreck things... like economies. CDE pay isn't price fixing in the traditional sense. It is more like class collusion.

If the company is a for profit entity how can we justify the regulation of CEO salary?

The CEO is bringing value to the company otherwise the company could bring on a CEO that provides more or the same value at a lower price.

Regulating the pay of executives and bureaucrats at government (paid with tax payer money) entities makes sense but regulating the pay of CEO's in private or public traded companies is ludicrous.

Who's talking about regulating CEO salary. The only price fixing I was talking about is the price fixing of colluding CEOs and board members. See blogs.hbr.org

Assuming we are not dealing with a quasi-government entity (Fannie Mae, Freddie MAC of a company that got a bailout from the government) who is the govt to say what CEO salary should be?

How is it governments business?

Who is arguing that it is the government's business?