Well this thread really took a turn, LOL. One thing that has/had contributed to many shortages were companies that adopted a "JIT - Just in Time" warehousing/stock approach, meaning they only stocked what they could sell. They were not warehousing locally. As long as everything was working as expected things were fine. When the crankarm hit the fan all those companies stock was depleted without any option to replenish (at least in a timely manner)