A line in John's reply on the "rent, economies of scale, and government payments" thread below brought to mind a question I have thought about.

At what point in an operation do you quit caring about "the long run?"

I ask because I can think of countless times where I have seen operations take actions which, in hindsight, made absolutely no sense whatsoever because the operation in question was not destined to exist long enough for the actions to reach maturity.  I'm talking about operations which were terminated voluntarily, either by retirement or by other means according to the claims of the principles involved, not ones which were forced out of business.