It's very true, especially true the larger a company gets, as there are so many people in "supervisory" roles that no one notices when a large chunk of them are doing absolutely nothing at all. Worse than that; often the roles are poorly defined, and the people themselves in the roles don't really know exactly what they're supposed to be doing. So they just potter about trying to make themselves look busy, justifying their own position, whilst the people lower down get on with the actual work (and in truth, everything would tick along just fine without the supervisory roles).

The company I work for is constantly shifting its management structure and inventing new supervisory roles. Being "promoted" to one is employment suicide. A year later they realise - without fail - that they didn't need to create that role, but the positions that those people came from have already been filled with replacements, and so the poor sap who was "promoted" ends up in the dole queue as soon as their redundancy payment runs out.

This is quite typical of large companies these days. Things have changed massively in the last 5-to-10 years... and are certainly a long way from how things were back in the '70s when the example in the OP was climbing the ranks. The capitalist west was booming and America was genuinely full of opportunity and optimism. That is not 2014.

I am currently working as the CEO of a large Multi-National Company....but only until a good Fast Food job opens up.

I can't wait to start flippin burgers again, you never get tired of the smell of the grease in your clothes and hair.