That line was only recently penned by the great Irish poet and philosopher, Paul Hewson. It no doubt applies here to our daily struggle against The Banks and their paper derivative pricing scheme.

"It is what it is but it's not what it seems." Yep, that's a deft description on Comex Digital Gold and the pricing scheme that has prevailed now for nearly 43 years. Recall it was December 31, 1974 when Comex gold futures were introduced...not coincidentally the day before US citizens were once again allowed to legally own and possess physical gold. You can read all about it here.

And so here at the end of 2017, the cumulative amount of alchemized digital or synthetic gold "exposure" has reached a total that not even the writers of that 1974 memo could have envisioned. Unallocated gold. Gold futures. Gold swaps. OTC options. ETF shares. Levered ETF futures shares. You name it. It's all used as a substitute for the real thing...actual physical gold. And so long as the fractional reserve confidence scheme continues, the world will never know just how much real, physical gold exists for private, institutional and sovereign investment.

"It is what it is but it's not what it seems."

What needs to happen in 2018? Investors on every level need to demand delivery of true physical gold. They must foreswear the convenience of synthetic gold exposure and ignore the disingenuous warnings of the dangers and costs of private vaulting and self-storage. Only true physical demand can force The Bullion Banks to de-lever their system and only this deleveraging of the fractional reserve system can force the discovery of a true, physical price.

And there are rumblings that such a movement toward physical holding may be coming. Whether it's the geopolitical risk of war in Korea or the Middle East, the economic risk of de-dollarization or the very real threat of globally-sanctioned negative interest rates, events may move quickly and the Central Bank-concocted scheme of 1974 may unravel almost as rapidly as it was put into place.

So the question is, are you prepared? Your only option in this is to hold real, physical metal...whether it's through a bullion dealer, a private vaulting service or a true physical fund like the PHYS or PSLV. "Gold" or "silver" in any other form is a Banker-created risk that you should no longer be willing to take.