> A higher cash comp for CEOs may well result in lower employee pay, a higher stock comp will not.
Why? The whole point of publicly traded stock is that it's, like traded, in public. That means it's freely exchanged for cash in a matter of seconds.
If the company can use it to compensate one person it can use it to compensate another person.
What's your theory here, is it that the company has a resource that can generate compensation without any consequence to the company's finances, but it's only possible to give that compensation to certain people?
Both stock comp and cash comp are the same from the shareholders view. They are not the same from the employees view. A higher cash comp for CEOs may well result in lower employee pay, a higher stock comp will not.