Andy, good point, but if you cash in your investment you don't have your dividend anymore either. I think you and I agree though on most of this. The hard job is convincing others to see how dramatically dividend return can grow over the years in a company paying even a modest dividend.

I think many investors miss this because a 2% current dividend yield sounds low, but if you've held that stock for 10 years or more you have to adjust the yield for any splits, and this will give you a much better picture of how much you are making on the cost of the original investment. Sometimes the yields are huge.