Shortages are a function of availability
at a given price. As one poster pointed out, and many have experienced here, just because you have a low price does not mean that there are no shortages. Which brings us to the question of "shortage of WHAT?". There is no shortage of paper that affects the price of physical, but if the price of the paper drops to the point where there is no physical available at that price, then the goof-stupid "no shortage" illusion is revealed for the bullshit that it is.
If silver drops to $20 (based primarily on derivatives), I may be unable to get ANY physical at that price
. If, on the other hand, I offered $50, suddenly physical comes out of the woodwork, with practically everyone willing to sell at that price
. That fact alone proves, in the absolute, that paper and physical are only loosely coupled--with different prices and availabilities of each at different times--which means that paper is, to that extent, manipulating and distorting the physical market.