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Sure. There is no such thing as "unemployment" either. If you're willing to work for $1/month that is.

It's about market reality, not about greedy CEOs who try to screw the hard working developers.. If the best programmer you can hire is expected to produce $X worth of value, you can't just offer a salary of 2 x $X. How many programmers do you know who can produce something worth $1M+...every year?

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Even though the $1M figure was meant to be rhetorical:

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:GOOG&fstype=ii

Google had revenues of $31B with less than 30,000 full time employees over the last year. Programmers there are bringing in over $1M on average. There must be some there that are actually worth it.

Let's say I own a building which I'm renting for $10M/year and I employ 10 people to service the building. Are these employees "bringing" me $1M on average? Or maybe the main factor is that I own a building, worth millions?

Anyway, I know you were not serious about the $1M figure. That wasn't my point either. All I'm saying is that the expected value of your work <= your salary. And sky isn't the limit for that number so employers have to take this into account.

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