Squeezing the Lemon

How many of you have ever disagreed with decisions made above you, but you had to execute?  You can  all put your hands down now.  Let's take this a step farther.  Have any of you either made, or executed a decision that was entirely about making your numbers this quarter, or even this year, but you knew the decision could potentially mortgage the companies future?  These are decisions managers and leaders have to wrestle with every day.  Where is the line between being efficient and lean vs. choking sales and service and causing longer term repercussions in the out years?  How many instances can you come up with where mass cutting of expenses have ended being a good long term decision for your company?  I pose these situations as questions because I'm not sure there is just one right answer, but I do think companies owe it to their employees, customers, and stockholders to operate as efficiently as possible every day so you can scale your costs up, or down based on the size of the business and not just slash, or "squeeze the lemon" to hit a number without really understanding how it will effect the day to day operation.