The images you maintain aren't something you're seeing. It's something you're believing. I don't know why you find these ideas comforting, but that's another story.

In 2007, the CEOs of the top 500 corporations earned a combined $5.7 billion.

That includes "salary and cash bonuses; other compensation, such as vested stock grants; and stock gains, the value realized by exercised stock options."

And as the article says, that computes to less than 1% of total revenues and 3% of total profits of their companies.

You can read other links at that site about how well they performed, and more details.

Note that $5.7 billion would pay for about 14 hours of what our Federal government will spend in 2011. It is one quarter of one percent of what the government pays out as social spending every year.

And you know what? Not one of these guys gets my money by force.

These are facts, like the diameter of the Moon is a fact. These facts do not mesh neatly with your idea that somehow these rich bastards are using up vast amounts of money that would make your life better if only you could crush the rich like the bugs that they are. The eternal Great Marxist Dream.

Your entire premise is fundamentally wrong.

Which is why, ten minutes after you read this, these facts will be discarded, and next week you'll be complaining about the Evil Rich CEOs again.