We've had an epidemic of executive compensation absurdity for more than two decades driven mostly by good old boy networks on boards of directors. Most of the executives I know, paid astronomic amounts, are nothing but competent bureaucrats.
A client took the following material to the top people in the government but didn't present it. I leave it to you to get it to the appropriate people who will carry it out.
The current tax law allows rewards for executive comp when paid in return for performance. The key in the future is to specify performance publicly in advance.
The combination of the IRS and the SEC have the power to create a set of (maybe 5) performance based compensation reward systems. Since compensation over $1 million is only tax deductible if it is performance based:
(2) such a mechanism for measuring performance can be applied to all compensation including stocks, stock options, ghost stock and retirement
(4) the performance reward mechanism must apply to all employees above some pre-determined cut-off of wages.
The goal of this proposal is to take executive performance rewards out of the day-to-day hands of the corporate board members.
Remember, that within the performance measurement mechanisms all comparative corporate scales must be public and based on public data.
Will this fix the executive compensation epidemic? Yes, for several decades.