Reply #11: Nonsense. [View All]

[A HERETIC I AM]

There is no obligation for a company to issue shares, either for public ownership or private like Publix and Penske do. There are thousands of other companies large and small that have issued no shares of stock at all.

Take as an example the United Parcel Service. For decades UPS offered shares to its employees as part of their retirement packages. The shares were not publicly traded. In November of 1999 they went public. Why would they do that? When a company issues stock, the authorize a specific number of shares as the maximum but may only issue a small percentage of that number. They also retain ownership of large blocks of the issued shares called Treasury Stock. UPS knew, like every other company that goes public, that there are distinct advantages to having their stock trade publicly. It is an extremely effective way of raising money for expansion or other projects.

BTW, this "huge mess" was not caused by the stock market.