IT CAN'T be any coincidence, can it?

In the same week that an overpaid footballer is in the dock and a fat cat banker has departed with a pay cheque like a Zimbabwean banknote, we hear the news that Chris Moyles, the self-styled 'saviour of Radio 1', is leaving his lucrative post with the BBC.

Maybe the planets are aligned to tell us something: could it really be an end to the culture of obscenely generous salaries equalling omnipotence?

That idea of "I earn more than almost everyone else, therefore my ego is allowed to mirror my bank balance".

There's a good dollop of jealously in there, and anger. I doubt very much that I'd baulk at another digit being added to my payslip before the decimal point.

What I can't understand, though, is that the chief executives of banks, or footballers who turn out to thousands of adoring fans, can earn 100 times more than the people who effectively pay their wages.

I don't believe that the graft that Bob Diamond toiled in his daily routine was worth so many multiples of the average bank teller who faces angry customers daily. Or that a DJ can justifiably take home the hard-earned licence fees of more than 4000 people.

Billy Connolly said of the financial crisis: "I'm old enough to remember when bank robbers wore masks".

And I'm old enough to remember my professional footballer great-uncles who lived in council houses and took on other jobs after their playing careers ended.

The argument for over-inflated remuneration is one of talent: without a sizeable package, firms and organisations wouldn't be able to attract the best.

So isn't it time the playing field was levelled? Haven't the financial packages dangled in front of the few spiralled beyond civilised rewards?

The first time I heard a socialist-leaning critic of our capitalist society argue for a national maximum wage I thought they had been at the sherry cabinet.

Given the increasing inequality between rich and poor, and with Joe Bloggs suffering more than anyone else in the recession, I'm starting to wonder if a pay ceiling wouldn't be such a bad idea.

There are women in Cornton Vale serving sentences for stealing and benefits crimes while the financiers who got us into this mess through dodgy deals don't appear to have suffered the consequences of their actions.

Ordinary families have lost their homes as plush restaurants continue to serve up vintage wines to stockmarket traders.

I'm all for effort and achievement being recompensed, but something has gone horribly wrong when simply being gobby, kicking a ball about a pitch or losing sight of the bigger economic picture are rewarded so excessively.