The company I work for did the same thing after announcing salary freezes, (cuts for some, including me) elimination of our Bonus program (which was up to 25% for my level) cuts in training, and elimination of 401k matching.
The week after, the company (actually a large international Bsnk) announced record profits for the 26th quarter in a row, and announced they have $4b set aside for acquisitions.
It was the week after that that our company announced a new employee satisfaction survey in which most people refused to fill it out in a sign of overall discontentment with the company. Participation in the survey was under 10% with none of the feedback received being good.
Yes, they wondered publicly in numerous memo's to employees why participation was so low and morale so bad.
Bottom line, YES companies can be that eff'ing stupid.
We were told that rather than salary increases out company would make it up with bonuses. Mine last year was 1.55% of my new reduced salary, and I understand that was above average.