When is someone going to put a stop to this before the entire nation implodes? Today's outrage du jour is CEO compensation totaled $598 million at the 50 companies that laid off the most workers:

The 50 U.S. chief executives who laid off the most employees between November 2008 and April 2010 eliminated a total of 531,363 jobs, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, a research group that works for social justice and against wealth concentration.

In “CEO Pay and the Great Recession,” the institute said the $598 million in combined pay for the 50 executives would have paid one month’s worth of average-sized unemployment benefits for each of the laid-off workers.

The top 50 layoff firms reported a 44 percent average profit increase for 2009, the report said.

“These numbers all reflect a broader trend in Great Recession-era Corporate America: the relentless squeezing of worker jobs, pay and benefits to boost corporate earnings and maintain corporate executive paychecks at their recent bloated levels,” the authors wrote.

Is that what it takes to be a corporate leader? The ability to screw anybody, anytime and put the money in their own pockets?

When else in history have we seen this? What happened when the people had enough?