TAP: The Winner-Steal-All Society. More on out of control CEO and business executive pay.

"In 1999, the average chief executive earned 419 times more than his or her coworkers, up from 25 times in 1981, while the 10 highest-paid executives have seen their income soar an astonishing 4,300 percent between 1981 and 2000.

"In his testimony to the U.S. Senate, one Enron board member said he "did not worry" about high levels of compensation at Enron because he checked with a compensation consultant, Towers Perrin, which told him that Enron was "right on target" compared to other firms -- even though this meant Enron executives received $750 million in cash bonuses for a year in which the company's entire net income was $975 million."