Shortage of BTC may not  affect Mtgox if current low prices are directly manipulated by Mtgox itself... which may seem to be the case now.

- Say half of the btc deposited to Mtgox is actually stolen. Assuming 1000 BTC deposit before theft.

- After the theft only 750 BTC is left.

- Through market manipulation with press releases & exchanges & closing withdraws say Mtgox acquires 500 BTC with average cost of $250 each.

- Mtgox sells these cheap BTC's in the external market for $600 each. Totalling $300000.

- Flow of cheap btc starts to decrease the btc value of external market... Through arbitrage  prices in Mtgox increases and settles above Mtgox's average cost of btc buy. (Caveat : Mtgox should not / cannot make customers withdraw more than 250 BTC)

- Prices find equilibrium and Mtgox purchase BTC in the external market for average $400 each... 750 BTC that is ...Deposits this back to itself...

Now, mtgox initially paid $125000 for 500 BTC. After all it got 250 + 750 BTC. Mtgox leaves 750 BTC as customer's funds. Sell remaining BTC with the increased prices. Say $500 each. That is $125000 which initially mtgox paid in fiat.

No losses in fiat... Prices at mtgox decrease again with the sale of extra BTC that Mtgox got...

And then say the thinking of a theft is just a bullshit of our conspiring minds then the thief is Mtgox itself if it's indeed manipulating the market.

Let's see how it rolls out in the coming days... And hope it's just the incompetent devs of Mtgox...

ps: Prices and other figures are just coarse estimations or say examples, relative differences / ratios should be taken into account.