"Reduced tenure" when you're making plenty more money than needed to avoid having to work the difference in the first place hardly seems like such a catastrophic outcome. So many people can only dream of making enough money so they can retire early and not have to work at all. I know if you pay me a million dollars I wouldn't exactly shed a tear if I don't find a job anytime soon. I'm not sure I'd be dying to look for one either, and if somehow I were, I wouldn't feel entitled to anyone's sympathy if I don't find one, let alone feel entitled to offloading my emotional "cost" onto their wallets.
And I'm not even trying to take a side here. I do get that the situation is not as trivial as some portray it. But in your effort to illustrate that fact, you're oversimplifying massively in the other direction and ignoring some pretty salient facts.
> You get fired easier
I haven't particularly noticed CEOs match the turnover rates of their average employees, but I suppose you have data to the contrary and it's just my ignorance?
>If markets seem irrational, chances are good you don’t fully understand them.
So not a racket then?
Your average retail worker is responsible for following confusing sets of rules that are rarely fully modeled, if even fully understood, while working under cameras that are selectively and obliquely monitored. If someone wants them fired, or the place just needs to reduce staff, providing a justification is very low-effort.
Execs should have more Skin in the Game. But it is also a fact that the higher you go in the hierarchy, the riskier your job gets. You get fired easier, in shorter amounts of time and sometimes just for backstabbing/political reasons. The average tenure of execs has gotten shorter and shorter over the last decades. Finding a new job is also considerably harder, as the market size gets smaller and smaller the higher you go in the pyramid.
There are bad and questionable reasons why compensations are high, but also some good and reasonable ones. If markets seem irrational, chances are good you don’t fully understand them.