You Can Only See The Sun From The Top Of The Mountain

The rest of us people are too busy holding that mountain up.

The heads of the nation’s top companies got the biggest raises in recent memory last year after taking a hiatus during the recession.

At a time most employees can barely remember their last substantial raise, median CEO pay jumped 27% in 2010 as the executives’ compensation started working its way back to prerecession levels, a USA TODAY analysis of data from GovernanceMetrics International found. Workers in private industry, meanwhile, saw their compensation grow just 2.1% in the 12 months ended December 2010, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Two years of scaling back amid tough economic times proved temporary as three-quarters of CEOs got raises in 2010 — and, in many cases, the increases were substantial.

And of course the reason why CEOs are being rewarded is because corporate profits are through the roof.  The reason why corporate profits are skyrocketing is because corporations are sitting on piles of cash and not hiring workers...or if they are hiring workers they are in turn shipping jobs to cheaper labor markets overseas.

So corporations are having some of their best quarters in modern history right now.  The big ones don't pay a dime in taxes on revenue, either.  It's not "corporate taxes are too high."  It's that corporations would rather ship jobs to Indonesia, China, India, and Malaysia than Indiana.  It's business, and the big consumer growth markets aren't us anymore.  Our reign at the top of the consumer food chain is O-V-E-R.

American workers on the other hand, the most productive workers in the world?  Well, how's your paycheck looking lately?