What talent?

The Economist is full of discussions on executive pay. Many interesting points. But I would strongly raise doubts about this: yes, you certainly want the best talent you can get to run your financial industry. But how do you get the best talent? Is it always a matter of money? do you really believe that the top bosses who miserably failed were so much clever than their staff? (I take staff just to keep this within a group of people with the same technical background) And: do you believe that the “best” people (whatever that means) make their decisions based only on the pay package? Once you earn “more than enough” (say, a couple of hundred, or of millions, if you will), will you really be primarily motivated by more if you have any kinds of brains? Even taking star executives, do you think Bill Gates, Larry Page or Steve Jobs were/are motivated primarily by making more billions?
Sounds just silly to me. Supposing that if you can’t pay outrageously more than what is needed even to live a very lavish lifestyle, you won’t get talented people, is an insult to the word “talent”, and to intelligence. This post by Matt Yglesias makes far more sense! If you deserved the reward, you deserve blame - if you don't deserve the blame, you did not deserve the reward...Read it!