There's a difference between a CEO that's paid well and one that's raking in loot he clearly doesn't deserve. The former may invoke a bit of ire in this economic climate, but when cooler heads prevail, the cash laid out is usually but a rounding error on the increases in market cap he's driven. An overpaid CEO, on the other hand ... well, it's a bit harder to justify the inflated package.

Kerri Chyka over at CNN Money reports that the Corporate Library sifted through the bloated and legit packages out there to let us know which top dogs are rolling in dough that should probably be left in the company coffers.

1. Michael Jeffries, Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF)
Last year, Michael Jeffries made $71.8 million in total, with a base salary of $1.5 million, according to corporate governance research firm, the Corporate Library. It even included a $6 million retention bonus ... because you want to hang on to a guy who the research firm calls one of the five "Highest Paid Worst Performers" of 2008. If that stings, Jeffries can hop on the Abercrombie corporate jet instead of running away. He's paid better than 75% of rival CEOs, while the share price generally underperformed them.

2. James W. Stewart, BJ Services Company (NYSE: BJS)
James Stewart had a good year in 2008, as it outperformed most of its peers, and he nailed a $34.6 million package. In all fairness, $30 million came from the value realized on stock options. The four years that preceded Stewart's strong performance, on the other hand, were lackluster. The future, it seems, is immaterial, as Baker Hughes picked up BJ Services last month, and Stewart will probably be out the door at the end of the year, when the deal closes.

"The US natural gas storage cycle is fairly straightforward: More gas is consumed in winter than in summer because natural gas is a key source of heat," explains Elliott Gue.

In his industry-leading The Energy Strategist, the energy sector specialist makes a bullish case for natural gas as well as contract driller Nabor's Industries (NYSE: NBR).

"The year started off with gas storage levels falling in line with the average. In late February or early March that all changed: Storage levels jumped and eventually broke to a new five-year high.

Since August 2007, the Fed has cut its Fed funds rate from 5.25% to 0.25%. So shouldn't the cost of borrowing be down 5% as well? At first glance you might think that the cost of corporate borrowing would be down right along with the Fed funds rate. But rather than dropping 95%, the cost of borrowing for even the most credit worthy companies has nearly doubled. That matters because companies are likely to try to borrow $700 billion in 2009. And therein lies the reason that the Fed has no power to fix what ails us.

Here are two examples:

• Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) , the only investment grade rated airline, raised $400 million in bonds in December 2008 to cover its losses from betting that fuel costs would stay high. Rather than paying the roughly 6% it had paid in 2004 to raise $350 million when the Fed funds rate ranged between 1.25% and 2.25%, Southwest had to put up 17 of its Boeing (NYSE: BA) jets as collateral and pay interest of 10.5% percent, nearly double the rate it had paid in 2004.
• Nabors Industries (NYSE: NBR), an oil services company, issued $1.1 billion in 10-year bonds in early January 2009, agreeing to a 9.25% -- in January 2008 when oil prices were rising, Nabors paid a mere 6.15% to borrow $975 million.

Why are companies paying more to borrow even though the Fed has slashed its short-term rate to near zero?

"In recoveries from panic selloffs in the past, the energy patch has tended to outperform the S&P 500," notes energy sector specialist Elliott Gue.

In his The Energy Strategist, the advisor offers his outlook for the sector as well as a package of five favorite energy-related stocks, including ideas in the drilling, infrastructure. oil services and exploration areas.

"This has undoubtedly been the most challenging and unsettled market in recent history for the stock, bond, currency and credit markets. Not surprisingly, the energy sector hasn't been immune to the selling pressure.

"However, I would note that the selloff in most energy stocks I cover has little or nothing to do with fundamentals and everything to do with market sentiment and a pervasive sense of panic.

"Institutions are dumping stocks to raise cash and the primary fear infecting the energy markets is that a dramatic global economic slowdown coupled with a seizing up of credit markets will destroy demand for energy commodities..

Readers of this space know that one of the preferred sectors is oil/oil services. Given oil's importance in a growing global economy, oil and oil services companies are likely to continue to experience steady demand for their services/products. And with the above in mind, Nabors Industries is worth a review.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE: NBR) is the world's largest land-drilling contractor, engaging in oil, gas, and geothermal land drilling operations in the U.S., South/Central America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Analysts like NBR's increasing dayrates for U.S. land drilling rigs, which rose $1,056 per day to $21,135 in Q1 2008.

Analysis provided by Paul Foster of Theflyonthewall.com:

U.S. stocks moved were mixed today. REIT shares rallied after Blackstone Group announced the purchase of Equity Office Properties Trust (EOP), the largest U.S. office building owner and managers for $36 billion. Mineral stocks were active on Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) $25.9 billion cash and stock bid of Phelps Dodge Corporation (NYSE: PD). Steel stocks were strong after Oregon Steel Mills (OS) board agreed to be purchased by Evraz, a Russian steel maker, for $2.5 billion. The S&P 500 was down 0.05%, NASDAQ 100 was up 0.20%, The Dow down .18% and the 10 year bond rates rallied to 4.595%. The CBOE VIX was down .01 to 10.03.

Nabors Industries Limited (NYSE: NBR) option implied volatility spiked to 42 on Heavy call volume: NBR representative said "no substance" to takeover rumors. Nabors is an owner and operator of almost 600 land drilling rigs, approximately 791 land workover/well-servicing rigs, and 43 offshore plate form rigs worldwide. Nabors has a market cap of $9.7 billion with long term debt of $4 billion. The company had 2005 revenues of 3.5 billion. The call option volume of 75,552 contracts compares to a put volume of 13,104 contracts. The company recently was up 1.34 to $31.90 on renewed LBO chatter. Nabor's December option implied volatility of 42 is above its 26-week average of 34 according to Track Data, suggesting upside directional fluctuations.

Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) was recently up $3.35 to $99.15. Unconfirmed chatter has Intuitive Surgical declining a bid from General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). ISRG's da Vinci Surgical System is designed to make a range of open surgical and minimally invasive surgery. ISRG call option volume of 19,768 contracts compares to put volume of 5,764 contracts. ISRG over all option implied volatility of 47 rose from a level of 42 this morning according to Track Data.

Option volume leaders today were Apple Computer, Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Nabors (NYSE: NBR), Phelps Dodge Corporation (NYSE: PD), Novellus Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVLS), and Marvell Technology Group, Limited (NASDAQ: MRVL).

The 10 highest paid CEOs are amply rewarded -- earning an average of $58 million in the last year -- but they are not producing equally: three bargain CEOs created shareholder value on the cheap, three hogs added shareholder value but got paid too much to do so and four value destroyers were paid big bucks to lose shareholder value. Finding those bargain CEOs could be a great way to look for investment opportunities if you think that they can keep creating shareholder value at the same rate as they have in the past. (A map of the location of these CEOs is here.)

I calculate that in the last year, these 10 CEOs presided over the creation of $12 billion in stock market value -- their $58 million average CEO pay works out to 0.5% of that $12 billion in additional stock market value. But lest you get too excited, the average stock price of the 10 companies increased 12% while the S&P 500 rose 15%.

If CEOs were paid for value creation, I would expect all 10 of these companies to be contributing to that $12 billion in increased stock market value. But the reality is quite different -- four of the 10 destroyed shareholder value in the last year while the remaining six increased it. Who are the bargain CEOs, hogs, and value destroyers?