$500,000 is the limit to executive pay

“One of the big questions is whether it will make it more difficult to recruit and retain executives at these companies,” said Claudia Allen, chair of corporate governance at the Chicago-based law firm of Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg.

Since when does leading a company into finincial ruin establish criteria that make one valueable to a company? It would seem to me that if an executive fails to make a company profitable (after all that is the ONLY consideration in a capitalist economy) they should either get maybe a cost-of-living increase or nothing or simply loose their job.
I don't know about you but I would be thrilled to make half a million a year with NO bonus. I think it is fair to say that nearly anyone who lives in America would consider a salary of half a million to be a big increase. Maybe as high as %90 of Americans would make a substantial ammount more if that was the pay they received.
These executives are not a hundred time more important than the person who sits in a cubicle or works in the mail room. It is time that we recognize that we as a working society have been screwed for so long that cutting someones pay to half a million dollars a year is considered a serious move. How about we cut their pay to ten percent of the lowest paid employee? Then if the company is profitable we can discuss a bonus for everyone not just the executives.