RE:The level of manipulation The families do not care about the share price, and care even less about shareholders.
Why would they care? They are not selling any shares. They only care about maintaining control. The only time they might care would be if they were trying to raise capital with an equity offering, and even then, since they would have to kick in 50% of the money in order to maintain control, the actual share price wouldn't really matter that much.
Of course, if they are considering taking it private, they care about share price. Just not in the way we would like them to.
Jim