The figures for executive pay in 2003 are out, and as Frank Sinatra would have crooned, "It was a very good year."

Median pay went up 15% for your average CEO, but for the top echelon--CEOs of large corporations--pay rose 22% to reach an average $9.2 million.

The survey ... showed increases in almost every category of executive compensation, including base salary, annual bonus, total annual compensation, restricted stock, long-term incentive payouts and the value realized from the exercise of stock options. The only category to decline from 2002 to 2003 was the value of stock option grants.

Despite calls for more restraint in CEO pay, it was a better year for the executives than 2002, when total compensation rose by a median of 9.5 percent.

As I've noted before, when Bush uses the word "economy," it's code for "my buddies" or "my class" or "the elite." While workers were losing more jobs than were lost during any administration since Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), corporations continued to do well, and CEO salaries continued to rise.

You can expect to be trickled on any day now.