publicly held

i have shares in a publicly held company. they're not many shares, enough to make me curious about the way the prices are going but not enough to make me worry about the market overall. i get invitations to shareholders meetings every time they're held (albeit i get the invitations a few days too late). now owning a very minor share in a company and getting invited makes me feel special, part of a bigger whole (no matter how insignificant i really am).

what's more interesting is the way that public companies are scrutinized by their shareholders, on a quarterly (3 month) basis. profits are down, people sell their shares and the company is screwed. profits are up too high (that is, above projections) and people sell their shares because the company can't seem to manage itself and will get screwed the following quarter. too many screw-overs and the ceo is gone. more screw-overs the board is grilled. accounting scandal? bye-bye cfo.

so in a publicly held company every shareholder can affect the flow and decisions of the company, as per their share, the managers are scrutinized every quarter, mishaps usually means that heads will roll, and you can't screw around.

sounds to me that they're better democracies than most modern countries.