Again, The Nonsense....

Janus folks were on the crooner channel with another screed about the power of compounding.
Yes, exponents are great when they work for you.  But here's the problem: There is no such thing as infinite compound growth when you live in a place of fixed size.
The Planet Earth is of fixed size, mass and resource.
So what has driven this mantra?
Simple: A 30ish year cycle of generally falling interest rates which made financial leverage "profitable."
That cycle has now ended.
What happened to the markets in times when that cycle did not exist?
1931 -> 1951, the S&P 500 went..... nowhere.  20 years, no gains.
1966 -> 1979, the S&P 500 went..... nowhere.  13 years, no gains.
1973 -> 1983, the S&P 500 went..... nowhere.  10 years, no gains.
Got it?
1983 -> 2000?  Rocket ship.
Why?

Notice the period before that (the unshaded part) and that rates were generally flat-to-rising.  And what characterized that time period?  Long periods of zero gain and, if you bought when prices were relatively (for the period) high you took a huge loss.
Now what do you think is the likely outcome when short rates are pinned at zero and thus cannot realistically go lower?  Even if they never rise what's the likely path for stock prices?  How much compounding do you think you're going to get, when the entire reason that "compounding" happens is ever-increasing financial leverage enabled solely by a secular declining rate environment as I have previously described.
Again, the way it works is this:
When rates are at 10% you borrow $1 million.  It costs you $100,000 to keep that $1 million out.
Then rates drop to 5% .  You can either pay $50,000 in interest or keep paying the $100,000 and spend another million.  Guess which you choose?
Then rates drop to 2.5%.  You can either pay $50,000 in interest or keep paying the $100,000 a year and spend another $2 million.  Guess which you choose?
Now you have spent $4 million dollars.  It's gone and you are incapable of paying it back; you might have been able to pay back to the $1 million, but you have no prayer in hell of covering the $4 million.  You are paying $100,000 a year in interest forever for this privilege.
The benign case is that rates never rise.  You are forced to spend the $100,000 forever on interest but you cannot "goose" your economic numbers (whether they be by stock buybacks, dividends, or welfare payments) through borrowing and spending more money because the secular trend that made such possible has ended.
The malignant case is that rates do rise, and you're instantly screwed because you can neither afford to pay $200,000 interest or fork up $2 million (of the $4 million) you have out in order to reduce the principal.
That is what drove the market over the last 30 years and the so-called "miracle" of compounding.  It has ended not only for investors but for businesses and governments as well.