Reed writes:

  The reality is that the boards of public companies hate
  overpaying for anything, including executives. But 
  picking the wrong chief executive is an enormous 
  disaster, so boards are willing to pay an arm and a leg 
  for already proven talent

So if it currently takes $2 mill / year in an executive's pocket to get him on board, and that means $3 mill / year pretax (because, as Reed points out, the current tax is roughly 33%), then why, with a higher tax rate, is it going to take any less to get the same executive on board?

The only different between a 33% marginal tax rate and a 50% marginal tax rate, of course, is that now the board have the pay the same executive $4 million pretax to get the same after tax dollars in his pocket ... and the bitching and moaning about high executive salaries will ramp up in proportion.

Reed is a pretty smart guy, but this is a pretty stupid editorial.