In one way you are right but i watched as they hired the first US style CEOs and the greed set in at the top. It had always been there but it sudden;y got a whole lot worse. While the story line was that we needed to pay surprising fortunes to get good people the quality of leadership, little improved. I had access to a lot of the top 500 companies and was involved in assessments of many. I won't name them for obvious reasons, but when you looked at talent it was easy to pick which ones might have face problems - and they did. But it didn't stop the pay. It also suited the search firms who, because they charged by percentage of salary, were suddenly wallowing in money. Add super funds and shareholders insatiable desire for growth and returns and you get what you get - a fair amount of smoke and mirrors, taxation challenges and expectations that are not sustainable. What we need is a review of our own greed and expectations and a rejig of everything. chances of that happening - zilch I would have thought.
