"I should also point out the 18 times means you'll get your investment back in 18 years assuming zero sales growth"
I think you mean dividend growth.
"Looking at the profit history of Microsoft, Google, Coca Cola, etc - these companies are all making multiples of the profits they were making 20 years ago, or in Google's case closer to 10 years ago - that's a mighty conservative position to take."
Really? You're seriously trying to use these as examples? Well ok, lets delude ourselves and pretend we bought these. How much has MSFT gone up over the last 14 years? ZIP. Coke over 15yrs? ZIP.
