I am telling you that even people further down in the hierarchy make good money. Either your academics are lying to you (which wouldn't suprise me people are fucking greedy) or something has gone very wrong in your country. If we are talking about American it's probably both of those things.
Oh interesting, your views inconveniently disagree with my experienced reality, which relates to numbers I can immediately look up because I have worked in that industry. I'm sorry about your views for you. A supermajority of teaching at American Higher Ed Institutions is done by people who get paid a couple hundred bucks per course hour, and teaching a 4:3 course-load under those conditions will not yield the numbers you are vaguely gesturing towards.
Go ahead, pick a school and look up their adjunct job offers.
My views are based on data from my own country. If that situation is that bad in Los Estados Unidos then leave. In my country the average lecturer salary is a bit over £40k per year which is above the average UK salary for all age groups. That again is for lecturers which are not the same as professors.
You still haven't said what their salary actually is, just vaguely talked about hourly rates. Shouldn't most lectures be full time employees? Are you saying most lectures aren't full time in your country?
Edit: In the UK we actually have a dedicated visa for people with certain skills and qualifications like your academics. So if you wanted to move here you probably could: https://www.gov.uk/global-talent-researcher-academic
You're the one making an argument here. So you're the one who should be doing research. Yet it seems I've done more research than you in this conversation.
If this is Los Estados Unidos then it's not surprising something is wrong. I still sincerely doubt what these guys are saying though. I suspect a lot of them either mismanaged their money badly or are just straight up lying. Nobody would work in academia in that country if things were that bad at every University.