Nardelli received more than $200 million in total compensation during his rule, including salary, bonuses, stock options and other goodies, according to Business Week magazine.

That's an eye-popping amount, even in terms of pay for chief executive officers of big U.S. corporations.

You might have read about Nardelli's messy exit from America's No. 2 retailer earlier this month. Home Depot announced Jan. 3 that the company and Nardelli had ''mutually agreed'' that he would resign. Although the company was solidly profitable under Nardelli, he was widely viewed as arrogant and disliked by many employees. The company's stock declined 7.9 percent during his tenure.

But Nardelli landed on his feet. In exiting Home Depot, he somehow secured a $210 million severance and retirement package.

Think about that a second, and then let the steam gush from your ears: Although Nardelli departed Home Depot in less than good graces, he waltzed away with a mind-boggling goodbye gift worth more than $30 million for each year he worked there.

It's the latest example of the wildly excessive compensation granted to numerous CEOs in the past decade, a period in which many middle-income and lower-income Americans have struggled just to keep their heads above water despite rising U.S. worker productivity.

Ironically, CEO pay has soared in an era in which a startling number of highly paid, greedy executives have been found guilty of corporate crimes that gravely wounded both companies and shareholders. Enron was, of course, the undisputed champ at high-level corporate chicanery.

Now there's a new corporate scandal brewing as a slew of companies are under scrutiny amid allegations of illegally backdating stock options so that top executives and directors could maximize the money they made in selling company stock.

When it comes to pay for upper-tier executives, here's how ridiculous it's gotten: Average CEO compensation for large U.S. companies in 2005 was 369 times the pay of the average U.S. worker, compared to only 36 times the average worker's pay in 1976.

It's encouraging that shareholders of some companies increasingly are becoming outraged about excessive executive pay and other corporate abuses. Some companies' annual meetings aren't quite so sedate anymore, and that's a good thing.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is now requiring companies to disclose, in plain English, the compensation they are giving top executives and members of their boards of directors.

Excessive CEO pay has been encouraged by overly cozy relationships among CEOs and directors, who might receive $200,000 or more annually for very part-time service on a corporate board. It's a classic case of mutual back-scratching.

One has to wonder what the Home Depot board of directors was thinking when it gave Robert Nardelli his outrageous $210 million farewell gift.

Company shareholders shouldn't stop asking about that until they get some very good answers.

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* JACK Z. SMITH is a Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial writer.