Show Me The Money! (Part 5)

(This post is part of a multi-post thread, and is in response to Part 4.)

Show Me The Money: Go to Jail Card
So everyone hopefully feels that a CEO's salary is based on market forces (namely: supply and demand, scarcity, skill sets, value for value, and opportunity costs). If you haven't been convinced why CEO's deserve this money then I have one last ditch effort: jail time!

Go To Jail Card: Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Everyone should have heard of Enron by now, if not…Titled officers deceiving investors and the public while lining their pockets. Today's anti-CEO sentiment very well could be tracked back to Enron or other corporate scandals like it. The legislation following Enron (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) was an attempt to stop scandals like these from happening again. Now it very well may have done that, but a side effect was that it actually increased CEO pay. Basically, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires CEO's to personally sign off on all financial reports verifying that they are correct. This is an attempt to put more responsibility on the heads of CEO's - causing CEO's to double check all numbers. What are the consequences of incorrect financial reports? According to section 404 of the act a CEO faces:
Up to 20 years in prison and $5 million in fines for intentionally certifying false earnings, OR
Up to 10 years in prison and $1 million in fines for mistakenly certifying false earnings.

I don't know about you but being a CEO seems to have a high level of liabilities. Let me ask you this: If, all of the sudden, it was determined that your current job had the penalty of up to 10 years in prison and $1 million in fines if you mistakenly messed up the numbers, you probably wouldn't want that job anymore. My guess is that the only way to keep you in your job is if the company agreed to basically throw money at you.

In a way it is similar to dangerous jobs. If your potential job is being an Alaskan Crabber and you may accidently die, they are going to have to pay you a pretty penny to get convince you to get on that boat.