Amid the blather of mindless debate and promises easily uttered and seldom kept, I found one topic very interesting -- what to do about CEO pay. I think Clinton and Obama have correctly calculated the political value in attacking CEO pay. And we likely will hear more about this topic as the season wears on, regardless of who wins the nomination.

Many corporate executives make more in an hour or two than the average American earns in a year. Citizens used to accept some disproportion and imbalance as a fact of life. But as the disparity grows and grows, and as the middle class faces the risk of disappearing from the scene, people are grumbling about this inequality. Some of this discontent may be due to envy or feelings of entitlement, but more and more of this restlessness arises out of the feelings of abuse and exploitation.

The class division may not be as bad as slavery, but everyday Americans are unhappy with their lot. Who can blame them as the good jobs are outsourced to foreign lands and eliminated in corporate restructurings? Poorly paid service jobs have replaced the better paying jobs. Firms like Walmart do all they can to keep the low-paying jobs low. I have a nephew who was recently fired from Walmart after working there a number of years and receiving several raises. His boss told him that he could get his job back if he were willing to receive the minimum wage. Does that sound fair?

The disparity in pay might not be badly received if laborers felt that executives had so much greater skill and added a tremendous amount of value to the firm. Given what has happened in the credit markets, however, I believe that the average citizen is questioning the competence of corporate executives. If these privileged executives really knew what they were doing and really made incisive decisions, then how did the meltdown occur in the credit markets? And why should CEOs be spared their jobs when Americans, right and left, are losing their homes? When the average Joe or Jane makes mistakes, they lose their job. Why don't more CEOs get the axe because of their incompetence? And, when they are let go, why are they entitled to a severance pay that others can get only if they win the lottery?

Additionally, the disparity in pay might not be badly received if Americans thought that the executives were morally straight and honest and trustworthy. Given the thousands of accounting restatements over the years, that image has been shattered. Watching corporate officials pay huge fines and go to prison, one instead wonders how a person could become so greedy or how corporate big shots can envision corporate assets as their own. This point is driven home by jokes like child in a sandbox telling the other that his mom said it was ok to talk with strangers as long as they weren't CEOs.

Economists don't help the situation when their discourse explains inflation and recession in terms of wages. When you are having a difficult time paying the bills and when gasoline and food prices are skyrocketing, it is hard to accept Wall Street's glee and upward prices when wages go down. The average American knows the wages are going down for them, but increasing for the privileged elitists.

At this point I do not think Americans are ready to rebel in any significant way. But, if CEOs continue to mold themselves into nobles like the French aristocrats of the 18th century while the wealth of average Americans continues to evaporate, don't be surprised if a decade or so from now the little guys storm an American Bastille, metaphorically or literally. Aggrieved peons and urban wage-earners can take only so much of this self-aggrandizement.

This essay reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of The Pennsylvania State University.

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J. EDWARD KETZ is accounting professor at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Ketz's teaching and research interests focus on financial accounting, accounting information systems, and accounting ethics. He is the author of Hidden Financial Risk, which explores the causes of recent accounting scandals. He also has edited Accounting Ethics, a four-volume set that explores ethical thought in accounting since the Great Depression and across several countries. He is the co-author of a monograph, Fair Value Measurements: Valuation Principles and Auditing Techniques (with Mark Zyla, Managing Director, Acuitas, Inc.) to be published by BNA.