Jump in a lake

I'm encouraged by newly-released data indicating the American Dream is alive and well.

Compare the daily earnings of "top executives at major businesses" and the annual earnings of "the average worker." It's the same, but that's ok.

Chief executive officers from the nation's biggest businesses averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, according to the 14th annual CEO compensation survey released jointly by the Institute for Policy Studies based in Washington and United for a Fair Economy.

In the past decade, CEO-pay has increased by about 45 percent in the United States.

(That would be only slightly better than the mythical average four-percent cost of living raise "we all get." If you happen to be stuck in minimum wage-land, you're seven percent behind what you were getting in 1997. But you're not supposed to be stuck there still - you were supposed to go get loans and go to college for something.)

The idea, I guess is to put aside any thoughts of being a teacher, a reporter, an auto worker, social worker, accountant, doctor, etc. and get on the fast track to convert any available knowledge and time toward business school.

From now on, whenever I ask a kid "what do you want to be when you grow up?" they better be bright enough to stand at attention and shout, "CEO!"

Besides getting elected to Congress, being the chief executive officer is the surest way to have a pension these days, too. Nothing shoddy about $1.3 million in pension gains (for CEOs) in a single year. Half of the Americans who are not CEOs and who are only 10 to 20 years from 65/retirement don't even have a pension account. Those who do saw average gains far below the million mark, at only $3,775 over the last five years, but that's fine.

So what if a few CEOs get $400,000 a year just in perks like housing allowances, private jet use, country club fee reimbursements - those 386 VIPs are working very hard to make sure our nation's companies are staying strong and providing jobs. Take a look at the list; these guys are bankers and financiers. They have a lot of responsibility, lots of things impacting their companies' profits to worry about - environmental regulations, labor issues, rising fuel costs, China, the falling market due to all those pesky foreclosures.

The top 20 CEOs are more valuable - 38 times more valuable - than the 20 highest-paid leaders of non-profit companies (there's no profit, so big salaries are out, right?) and 204 times more valuable than the 20 highest-paid U.S. generals (we have to keep our war costs down, right?).

And U.S. CEOs must be three times better than any European ones. By 2006 figures, the likes of industrial giants in Germany and France, etc. only pulled in an average of $12.5 million.

Our best guys got $37.5 million.

I'm just so proud of them. Way to go!