Dave’s Diary: Highest Paid CEO Oracle’s Ellison is Number One

It’s good to be the king…or at least the CEO…especially on pay day.   Way back in 1980, CEO pay was a whopping 42 times that of the average worker.  Today that is nothing short of chump change.  According to CNNMoney.com the average American worker's salary is $34,645 which is about as much as you’ll find in the auto ashtray of the average CEO.The CNNMoney website has found that the CEOs of the nation's largest companies earned an average of $12.3 million in total pay last year, which is …brace for it….354 times more than an average worker’s pay!!

At the high end of CEO compensation is Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who had a $96.1 million pay package last year.  (And that doesn’t include the value of those 15 minute coffee breaks)  And the gap could have been even greater.  Apple CEO Tim Cook's pay was a measly $4.2 million, a huge drop from his $376 million a year earlier.  That drop in Cook's pay was so large that it lowered the overall average for CEOs of top companies by five percent.  Don’t cry for Tim Argentina!