When i was growing up, we were taught that money was a very personal subject. One would never discuss the mortgage or the mounting credit card debt. (Mind you, I am not sure people in the 1950s had mortgages and credit card debt.) One certainly didn’t discuss how much money one made.

No, we donned white gloves and hats for church, wore sweater sets and reversible skirts to school — and never mentioned money in polite conversation.

Maybe that is why I retain a prurient interest in what other people make. Well, not what ordinary people make — that would be boring — but in what the big shots make, the CEOs that bring in the big bucks.

Other people may rush to the newsstand to grab People magazine so they can understand the intimate details of Brad and Jennifer’s breakup; I rush to www.sedar.com and download notices of annual general meetings and management information circulars. There, in glorious detail, is what the company’s top five executives made in the fiscal year just past.

The banks are now in season, working their way through their annual general meetings. I can only assume investor advocate Bob Verdun shares my interest because he brought Tony Comper’s compensation to the attention of those assembled for Bank of Montreal’s AGM in Toronto recently. Certainly Ed Clark’s $11.5 million pay package for steering Toronto-Dominion Bank to safe harbour has garnered some notice.

Not that I begrudge these gentlemen their pay, but I do find it hard to imagine what a person could do to merit that much money.
There are only so many hours in a day, only do many days in the week. So it’s unlikely the big pay is a function of the volume of work the executives do.

Running one of Canada’s major public companies no doubt means the CEOs shoulder a lot of responsibility. But doctors, teachers, police officers, public transit drivers — they all shoulder a lot of responsibility, too. Granted it is different type of responsibility but when my child was sick I would gladly have paid the doctor who saved her life $11 million, if I had had it to give.

I know these guys are smart — obviously way smarter than normal. I am sure they are good strategic thinkers with top-notch management skills. Why else would the company’s board of directors pay them the really big bucks? But I still have trouble imagining just what someone would bring to the table that is worth more than, say, $10 million a year.

Perhaps it is a failing on my part that I just can’t think big enough.

Mind you, I feel the same way about professional athletes who bring in the big bucks. They’re right up there with their multi-million-dollar compensation sharing.
Basketball player Latrell Sprewell recently distinguished himself by griping about the inadequacy of his $14.6-million pay package for playing a season with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

I have even greater difficulty imagining what an athlete must do to earn that kind of payout. I assume it is some function of scoring points, but that is a lot of points.
Maybe they put bums in seats, but like hours in the day, there seems to be a finite amount of seats.

I don’t get it. It seems strangely out of balance. Maybe finding a cure for AIDs or cancer, maybe bringing lasting peace to the world or ending discrimination would be worth $14.6 million a year. But running a company, playing a sport?

I am sure the fault is mine, I just can’t think big enough.

— tessa wilmott, editor-in-chief