Jim: "I'm sure that this effect is going on, and do not argue that it's egregious, but I would love to see how that was calculated. The figure seems a tad extreme even to me, at first glance. Are the managers really paid (say) over $700 billion a year?"

I would love to see how it was calculated as well.

He did go on to say this...

"One final comment on the record share repurchases in 2022.
A trillion dollars in shares repurchased bought 2.8% of the S&P 500's $36 trillion average market capitalization during the year. However, shares outstanding shrank by only 1.1%.
What happened to the remaining 1.7%? That's the dilution that comes with CFOs telling investors to ignore share-based compensation because it's not a cash expense."

John Bogle said this in his book, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism,
"What began two centuries ago as owners' capitalism—in which our corporations were run for the benefit of their owners—has transmogrified into managers' capitalism,
in which our corporations are being run for the benefit of their managers.
As I hope we all know, the value of a corporation is nothing more, nor anything less, than the discounted value of its future cash flow.
The compensation has gotten totally out of hand, ridiculously out of hand. It's basically robbing the shareholders of these corporations of the money that's really rightfully theirs.
That's a system that has to change. Corporations should be managed for the shareholders and not for the managers or the insiders.
I believe cost is the single most important factor in investing."