Check out a new report by the Associated Press today – showing that average CEO compensation topped $9.6 million in 2011 – the highest mark since the AP started looking at compensation numbers back in 2006. Meanwhile – wages for working people have barely budged – and it would now take the typical American worker 244 years just to make what their CEO makes in one year.

And among Fortune 500 CEOs – it’s even worse - they make 380-times more than their average worker. So are Wall Street banksters, oil barons, and corporate executives really worth that much money? Should they be paid hundreds of times more than doctors, scientists, or even teachers? This is what neo-feudalism in America looks like – and if Paul Ryan and the Republicans who are pushing austerity for working people - and trillions of dollars in tax cuts for corporate CEOs - if they win big in November – it’ll only get worse.

It’s time to rethink corporate capitalism altogether – and find ways to democratize the economy with worker-owned cooperatives, and business models like unions that look out for workers, the community, and the environment.