is there really a physical shortage, page-24

I am no where in the league of most HC posters on the Gold forum, i read to understand but the more i read the more i dont understand.
I dont hold a lot of physical gold but it is realitive to my financial position. I am heavily into NST and feel this could be a oppurtunity to add to my position with other undervauled goldies.
So i was trying to simplify my thoughts on gold to the most basic reasoning possible.
When anyone buys an investment or a store of wealth whether its a government,CB an individual or whoever, they buy it with expectation that they will make a profit and the more profit made the better.
So how long are the largest holders of Physical gold, say the top 20 going too stand by and watch there investments halve ($1800 to $900 an ounce). They can't dump it onto the market because they have too much. It would drive the price down even further. Mabey you could slowly feed into the market but that would take a long time.
This is not happening at this stage, and the likes of China as an example is buying in bulk, they obviously have some degree of a plan and throughly believe in there investment.
They are accumulating at lower prices to make a future profit or have a larger store of wealth. When there accumulation at lower prices has finished would they or anyone else in the top 20 holders not want to see gold at $1800-$2500 an ounce rather than $700-$1200.
This is some very basic reasoning and does not take into account any of the economics behind the top 20 holders but is more a reasoning that there wont be a 2 to 10 year bear market in gold as some are predicting.
Is this not the basics of investment "make a profit". Once the big holders have there war chests will they not manipulate the paper market to suit themselves.