Here's how I think of it. Not "black and white" so much as, when you're in business, you might willingly take on some short-term losses in the expectation that those will serve your best long-term interests.

Crane has written off some of you for the short term... anything he gets there is just extra... but counts you still in his long-term estimates... (hence my equivocation of that with still being in his back pocket).