The article makes it look like bankers get paid for nothing. That is simply not true. Wall Street allocates capital. Somebody has to decide how the capital available in the US gets distributed. For startups, its VCs, for mature companies, it is large institutional banks and the stocks and bond markets. The salaries are large because of the sheer amount of money that floats around. Consider the banker(s) who decide whether to give a loan to GE or handle a mutual fund. Chances are good that that single transaction has several million USD attached to it. Even a few %age of that is a very large amount. The larger comercial banks like JPM and Citigroup have upwards of half a trillion dollars of deposits. Suddenly multi-million dollar salaries don't seem that extravagant anymore.

Furthermore, if top level execs were really overpaid, we would see competition from outsiders capable of offering similar quality at lower price. It is not unusual for corporations to hire outside the company. That executive pay is still high is an indication that maybe, CEOs really are worth a few million dollars a year.

This is further complicated by federal regulation surrounding this sector of the economy. Banking regulations make it nearly impossible to start a bank. Other financial institutions are similarly constrained (though maybe not to such an extent). This artificially decreases supply and therefore, increases prices.

Are there some abuses in pay? Sure, just like there are abuses in everything else. However, because business execs are paid X times the average American and some demonstrably bad CEOs are rewarded extravagantly for their incompetence does not imply that capitalism has failed and all high-level pay needs to be regulated.