Money Morning’s Keith Fitz-Gerald brings us a sobering look at investing in gold. If there is a moral to the story, it’s that nothing is what it seems anymore – not even gold.

Two charts and three measures of gold’s “real” price today…

“Whether through exuberant hedgies or anxious private investors, gold just keeps pushing higher…”

So speculative betting on gold going higher now equals a record-busting 752-tonne position in Comex futures and options, yet this is not a bubble according to Michael Pento of Deltaga.

Gold closed at $999 on Tuesday. Then, yesterday, it closed down $2. There’s a time to buy gold; and there’s a time to sell it. Which time is it? The question rose with the gold price itself. It needs an answer.

There is probably no group of buyers more watched and coveted than Chinese consumers. Over the weekend, the Financial Times had a piece that highlights things the Chinese like to buy.

Two years into our “Great Recession” (or “Greater Depression,” depending on who you talk to) gold is selling for $944 an ounce. But back in 1980 – against the backdrop of double-digit inflation in America and a prolonged economic stagnation – gold reached a peak of $850. That’s the equivalent to about $1,900 in today’s money.

“If gold is ‘past its day’, what of toxic derivatives and today’s deluge of US Treasury bonds…?” Just like poor Pip Dickens’ Great Expectations, central banks keep inheriting unwelcome bequests.

There is suddenly a lot of interest in the idea that the federal government will make holding gold illegal, an example of which is “Is the Confiscation of Gold by Certain Central Banks Likely?” by Julian D. W. Phillips of GoldForecaster.com.

I was dismayed to see The Financial Times article about the new Central Bank Gold Agreement, where central banks agreed to limit their sales of sovereign gold to 400 tonnes a year. The European central banks, which includes the European Central Bank itself and the 16 banks of the Eurozone, plus Sweden’s Riksbank and Swiss National Bank, have all signed on with the new plan.

There’s a lot of Internet chatter these days about the possibility of the U.S. government seizing its citizens’ private gold holdings. What are the chances?