<< for those who’ve held a decade or more, they’ll have to double or triple their investment just to break even due to the time cost of money >>
Exactly.
One of the main reasons to invest in the stock market is to beat the rate inflation.
Governments will claim that inflation only runs at 2% - 3%, but that is an outright lie. Over the past 10 years, almost everything has appreciated dramatically in price. Housing costs have gone through the roof. The average sales price for a home in the US 10 years ago was about $265,000. It is now about $430,000.