[...] If investors seek speculative gains in price-fixing markets for assets which have no value (such as art objects or currency and carbon futures) instead of investing in value and surplus value creation, then this indicates a pathway by which value can be leached out of the general circulation of capital to circulate as money in fictitious markets where no direct value production (as opposed to appropriation) occurs. When price signals betray the values they are supposed to represent then investors are bound to make erroneous decisions. If the money rate of profit is highest in property markets or other forms of asset speculation then a rational capitalist will place their money there rather than in the sphere of productive activity. The rational capitalist behaves irrationally from the standpoint of the reproduction process of capital as an evolving totality. The result could be a deepening tendency towards secular stagnation in the economy as a whole.