I know this....My father started out with a company 35 years ago making minimum wage....Worked his way all the way up through the ranks and now falls into one of these high paying wages...He pays way more than his fair share of taxes every year, I have seen the checks written to the IRS they are more than most of us make in a year. Never gets a break, has to carry a satellite phone, gone all the time. He literally never gets a day away, even when we are hunting he is still having to run things, or he gets fired. There are no write-ups, warnings, suspensions, he is looking for another job period. Most of us have the luxury of leaving a job at the end of our shift and going home and forgetting about it. I dont think it is fair to say that "no one deserves 500 thousand dollar a year salary" until you have had to walk in those shoes.