Good habits, safe predictions and a herd of sheep.

The eminent journal Nature has developed the splendid habit of calling me when they write an article about Pfizer. This week they wrote an article with the headline, "Michigan lab axed as Pfizer cuts costs."

They ended the article about Pfizer eliminating 10,000 positions, saying, "And Peter Rost, a former vice-president of marketing and strident critic of Pfizer’s current management — now in litigation with the company over the circumstances of his departure in 2005 — predicts that there is worse to come. “This is just the beginning,” he says. “It is not the bottom. Two years from now, Pfizer will make another announcement, and cut another $2 billion. Just watch.”

I've repeatedly told the press that when Pfizer starts cutting the others will follow.

And so, yesterday, AstraZeneca, which reported an increase of 17 percent in fourth-quarter net profits, announced plans that they will eliminate 3000 jobs over the next three years.

These companies are pretty much like a herd of sheep. They all eagerly watch what Pfizer will do and then they do the same thing.