Charles Brymer, CEO of DDB, is taking home some serious cash even as the agency has cycled through a round of layoffs this year. The 48 year old's take home pay is $850,000, but add in his options and Chuck is worth over $3M.

Um, which is just as much as Sir Martin Sorrell, head honcho of WPP. His take home is $832,000 with total compensation added in, Sorrell is worth $3.2M.

Everyone is talking about CEO compensation these day and as we slide into a U.S. recession that noise is only going to shift from a rumble to roar. Remember when John Wren said that Omnicom staffers wouldn't be seeing bonuses this year? John, CEO of Omnicom, has a base salary of $1M, but what happens when you add in his exercised and unexercised options, which total a bit over 4 million? Hold your breath. The total for Wren comes to almost $63M.

Did you see how much dough the Interpublic execs are taking home?

Michael J. Roth, Interpublic's chairman of the board and CEO, received $1.1 million in base salary for 2007, which is only about a 3% raise from 2006. They say that a 3% salary raise is not enough to beat inflation, but when Roth's total compensation (stock awards, options, incentives) tops out at $8.9M, which is a 16% increase over 2006, who cares about base salary?

John J. Dooner Jr., chairman and CEO of McCann WorldGroup, takes home a base salary of $1.3 million, which is another 3% raise from 2006. His total compensation was $5.9 million - 9% over 2006.

Yes, this isn't the Bear Stearns crisis where thousands of workers lost their jobs was CEOs got generous buy-out packages in the tens of millions of dollars, but advertising industry employees are people do. Layoffs in the face of $5M compensation packages? Does that seem right?