HOUSTON – An article in the Houston Chronicle detailed the earnings of the top 100 highest paid CEOs in Houston. The highest paid was James Hackett at $27,466,376. The lowest paid was Lawrence Kellner at $3,932,987.

There were some statistics that the Chronicle article failed to report. The total of all the incomes of the 100 executives listed in the article was $773,608,923. It should be remembered that these were CEOs who actually have paid positions. These figures do not include the ultra-wealthy who do not work and get their incomes from investments, rents and interest. Dan Duncan was identified as the wealthiest Houstonian in a Forbes article indicating his total wealth was about $8 billion. I would imagine that the incomes of these ultra wealthy people are not publicly available. In other words, the incomes of the CEOs are small potatoes compared with the real fat cats.

The Chronicle article pointed out that there were no women among the top 100 highest paid CEOs in Houston.

While you are digesting this information, you might want to contrast these salaries with the median annual salary for a man in Harris County which is $37,361 and for a woman it is $28,941. This disparity in and of itself is shocking enough but is nothing compared with the sharks hogging millions and even billions in some cases.

The County Information Project indicates that 15.3% of the population in Harris County is below the poverty line and 22.5% of people under the age of 18 are below the poverty line.

These huge disparities in income might give us some pause to think about whether our current economic system is in the best interest of most Houstonians.