Powers - Growth and Patience

I couldn't resist showing more mathematical visual mystery/art.  In the world of "Compounding Power", which is more powerful - Growth or Patience?

 It's a trick question.  First let me explain these two pieces of art (to a Satistician a graph is art!).  Each graph shows the impact of $1 with time and growth rates. 

So for example, Chart 1 (Power of Growth rate) shows that at 20% growth rate if you save the last 5 years (from 50 to 55) your original $1 will earn $13,544 more dollars (look at the tan line vs the blue line).   But look how flat the line is from 5% to 10% - it didn't look flat to Ellen last night when I showed her how waiting 45 years could multiply her money at growth rates of 5% and 10%. 

Expand the yellow highlight into Chart 2 (The Power of Patience) and change the perspective (growth rates are now the lines).  Wow - what a difference an addtional 1% growth rate makes if you patiently wait over 30 years.  This would indicate that patience is the key to success.

In Chart 1 - nothing seems to happen until a growth rate of 14% regardless of saving time.  In Chart 2 nothing seems to happen until 30 years of saving regardless of growth rate. So we should just all give up because no one gets 14% or can have the patience of 30 years - Right?

NO! - Remember we are talking about just one George Washington Dollar bill. Notice the scales again - $25,000 in Chart 1 and $200 in Chart 2. And saving $1 doesn't seem like much today.

We would all prefer to trade $1 for $25,000 - so the power is in the growth rate (Chart 1)!

But  wait  :)  It still requires extreme patience - waiting the last 25 years (from  30 to 55)  is worth almost 100 times ($237 vs $22,645).  That makes patience pretty powerful!  If I had limited Chart 1 to just 30 years the scale would have been only $237 (like Chart 2). 

Growth and Patience combined require WILL POWER!  Confound it!