请做好准备，美国商界愚不可及、指鹿为马、违法乱纪的行为将越来越多。这个趋势不可避免。事实上，这个趋势可能已经开始抬头。

    这个问题并不新鲜，只是我们已经有段时间没碰到了，而人们一向健忘。这就是利润预期问题，眼下的预期乐观得近乎荒唐。企业界和华尔街分析人士给出的利润增长预期甚至让盲目乐观的波莉安娜【埃莉诺•H•波特所著小说《波莉安娜》（Pollyanna）中的人物——译注】也自愧不如，形同鲁里埃尔•罗比尼（罗比尼曾成功预测09年金融危机，被称为“末日博士”——译注）。如果企业管理者们为了达成这些不可能实现的数字使劲浑身解数，有些人就可能因此步入歧途。而一旦他们撞上残酷的现实，投资者就会遭殃。2006-2007年我们就曾见过这种情况，当时分析师们一厢情愿的以为，全球经济繁荣将永无止境。20世纪90年代末，类似情形更是登峰造极。

    目前，分析人士和商界都预计，企业利润年增速继超过30%之后仍将继续保持稳健——鉴于美国经济迟滞，亚洲增速放缓，而欧洲可能发生大震动，这样的预期自然算不上石破天惊。尽管世道对企业利润不利，分析人士和业界仍然预计明年的利润将出现强劲的两位数增长。

    这种预测毫无道理。公司利润占GDP比例现在已经接近上一次经济繁荣期的高点，同事也是二战以来的高点，也就是10%左右。难道在这样的水平之上真的还能大幅上升吗？二战以来，这个数字的平均水平为6%左右。长期而言，利润增速难以超越整体的经济增速。当然，部分地区的经济增速远快于陷入困境的西方世界，它们的利润率确实能达到这样的水平，但对总体于事无补。世界银行（The World Bank）预计2012年全球GDP增幅仅为3.6%。而接受汤森路透（Thomson Reuters）调查的分析师们却预计，标准普尔500指数的企业利润明年增幅将高达10% 。

    这并不是分析师们的疏忽所致。分析人士预测的是某些个别公司的利润，而不是整体市场的利润。然而，即便是在预测单个公司的利润时，他们也倾向于袒护自己所覆盖的公司。他们依然高度依赖这些公司给出的指导值。因此，他们总是自欺欺人，盲目相信即便经济停滞，他们所跟踪的公司也会拿出骄人的表现。他们偶尔也会正确。结果就是他们个个自认有理，但总体来看他们就是群疯子。

    经理们如果不能实现预期，就会受到严厉的惩罚，就算这些预期不且实际。因此，越来越多的经理会做出一些本不该做的事情，希望以此能实现目标。这些行为可以分为三类：

    愚不可及的行为：实现目标的最简单方式就是削减费用。问题是高管们最爱拿来开刀的研发、市场营销和员工培训等支出只是会计业务意义上的费用，它们事实上是能在未来给公司带来回报的投资。不幸的是，投资者们并不像公司管理者们想象的那样一无所知。研究显示，那些以损害未来业绩为代价削减当前成本的公司往往会遭到市场的严厉惩罚。

    Brace yourself for an increase in stupid, misleading, or illegal action by U.S. companies. The trend is inevitable. In fact, odds are it's already under way.

    The problem is an old one, but we haven't seen it in a while, and memories are short. It's profit expectations -- they're insanely optimistic. Companies and the Wall Street analysts who follow them are forecasting profit increases that make Pollyanna look like Nouriel Roubini, which is not a pleasant image to contemplate. As managers strive desperately to make their impossible numbers, some will go astray. When reality catches up with them, investors will suffer. We saw it in 2006 and 2007, when analysts expected the global economic boom to go on forever. We saw it at a historic scale in the late '90s.

    Now analysts and companies are projecting that after rising at rates of over 30% a year, profit growth will moderate -- not a blinding flash of insight given America's creeping economy, slowing growth in Asia, and potential cataclysm in Europe. Nonetheless, even in that profit-hostile environment, they're still forecasting strong, double-digit profit growth next year.

    It makes no sense. Corporate profits as a percent of GDP are near their post-World War II high of about 10%, which was reached at the apex of the last boom. Are they really going to gallop ahead from that level? Their postwar average is about 6% of GDP. Long term, profits can't grow faster than the economy. Of course some of those profits come from regions growing much faster than the struggling West, but that provides little comfort. The World Bank's forecast of 2012 world GDP growth is all of 3.6%. Yet analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect S&P 500 profits to grow 10% next year.

    It's not that the analysts are oblivious. It's that they're forecasting profits for individual companies, not for the whole market, and they still tend to fall in love with the companies they're covering. They also still rely heavily on guidance from those companies. So they repeatedly fool themselves into believing that even if the economy is going nowhere, the company they're analyzing will blow the doors off. And occasionally they'll be right. The result is that individually they think they're being reasonable, yet collectively they're nuts.

    Managers get punished harshly for failing to meet expectations, even unrealistic ones, so in growing numbers they'll try to hit their targets by doing things they shouldn't. Think of them in three categories:

    Stupid: The easiest way to hit profit targets is to cut expenses. Trouble is, many of the expenses that managers most frequently cut -- R&D, marketing, and employee training -- are expenses only under accounting rules; they're actually investments that pay off later. Unfortunately for those managers, investors aren't as clueless as they think. Research shows that markets whack the stocks of companies that cut today's costs in ways that hurt tomorrow's performance.