President Obama has stipulated that any bank that receives TARP funds from the government must cap the executive's pay to no more than $500,000 per year. 

Okay, fair enough.  However, if we are going to cap an executive's compensation because his entity receives government assistance, then shouldn't we look at the salaries of most university presidents, as well?  After all, any number of university presidents now make more than $500,000 per year.  And their institutions (just like the banks) will not survive without government funding and support. 
I fear it's a slippery slope that the President nor the Universities want to approach.
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The point dovetails with another item raised by my godson, related to the cost of education.  Imagine, if your child attended a public grade school or high school and comes home to announce that the teacher has imposed a fee of $75 per child.  The money will all be going directly to the teacher as additional compensation.  You would be outraged, right?

Well, in a sense, that's whats occurring in our colleges and universities.  A broad swath of our college professors have jumped on the gravy train of book publishing.  Using university time, they will create their own text books, often times printed by the University Press, and then stipulate that each incoming class must purchase the book for the class.  The book prices can run as high as $100, with the professor pocketing a large portion of that money. 

Again, typically, the book was written on university time - a period for which the professor was already receiving compensation from tuition and/or taxpayer dollars. 

University book bills can now run $500-$1,000 per semester.  But we've become so immune to the system, we've stopped asking "Why?".