> When you have the responsibility of 1000's of people's livelihood, their paychecks rest on your hands - you don't think that's worth a heck of a lot more than an average worker?

No, this is absurd. Their paychecks don't simply rest only in the hands of the executive, but in the hands of the worker as well. I'll concede it's a more valuable position, but not 1000x or 100x or even 10x worth the value of the avg. line worker.

Taking it further, frankly most of the executives I've worked with aren't responsible at all. They're generally sociopaths as well!

The Gervais Principle holds.