Todd, good discussion. I like the way Columbia professor Bruce Greenwald lays this out in his recent second edition of "Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond".

Most businesses are competative businesses, but a few rare businesses are special in that they have "moats" or competative advantages that raise barriers to entry. His position is that growth only really adds value in businesses with moats that can re-invest their earnings are rates much higher than their cost of capital.

So if a business is a regular, competative business, you should look at their asset value and/or earnings power value and only buy at a steep discount (not considering growth). However, if you look at something like Apple with a strong economic moat, then you can look at growth and make a prediction for a rate of return based on the current market price and the future of the business.

This is pretty cool because it allows for good fundamental analysis of "growth" companies and the ability to calculate a margin of safety, which is a critical concept for value investing. This is what Buffett has been doing for quite some time, but glad to see others (myself included) starting to catch up with a valuation framework.