• ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    The weird thing is, they don’t actually sell the jars anymore. “Ball jars” are not made by the ball jar corporation after their antitrust lawsuits for being a fucking jar monopoly. So they sold the “ball jar” rights and now only do aluminum cans for food packaging and high end satellites and satellite launch systems.

    • Metostopholes@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They don’t even do aerospace anymore. Ball Aerospace & Technologies was bought by BAE Systems earlier this year.

    • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      now only do aluminum cans for :

      • food packaging
      • high end satellites
      • satellite launch systems.

      I find this interpretation funny

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      oh thats good to know. i’ve got a few satellites lying around that i’ve been meaning to launch

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        So, at the time (1930) ball jar actually would have qualified as big business in the sense that you mean.
        Home canning was very popular and they consistently bought out smaller companies.
        Since they were privately owned, it’s tricky to find specifics about value, but they were “found a university”, “own a company town or two”, “chairman of the federal reserve” levels of rich.

        So actually a pretty good use of government.

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      On December 11, 1939, the U.S. Government sued the Ball Brothers, the Hazel-Atlas Glass Co., and the Owens-Illinois Glass Co. under monopoly charges based on the Hartford-Empire and Owens licensing agreements. The plaintiff claimed that small producers were being frozen out of business or prohibited from entering manufacture by the nature of the licenses. Almost a decade later, in 1947, the justices rendered a final verdict. The court prohibited the Ball Brothers from purchasing or otherwise controlling any other businesses engaged in the same manufacturing processes – in other words, the small jar producers. In addition, Ball had to divest itself of the Three Rivers Glass Co. (already closed for almost a decade) that Ball had acquired in 1936. Ball sold the property

    • Teal@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      I wasn’t aware of the jar monopoly situation. Maybe my old Balls will become collectible someday.