• ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month 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.

    • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      now only do aluminum cans for :

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

      I find this interpretation funny

    • metostopholes@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

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

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month 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

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

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

    • Teal@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

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

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month 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.

  • pruwyben
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    1 month ago

    Me: I need some tires.

    Michelin: No problem, anything else?

    Me: I don’t suppose you know where I can get a list of the best restaurants in the world?

    Michelin: You’re not gonna believe this.

    • darkpanda@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      The whole point of the Michelin guides were originally to entice people to drive more to visit hotels and restaurants and such, thus leading to more tire wear which would lead to more tire sales, and eventually more money for Michelin.

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍
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        1 month ago

        I like that the Guinness Book of World Records was created because the manager of Guinness Breweries wanted to stop arguments in pubs (and keep people drinking).

        • SoGrumpy@lemmy.ml
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          1 month ago

          The Guinness Book of World Records is in the Guinness Book of World Records itself, for being the book most stolen from libraries.

  • rustydomino@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    That’s almost as good as Aperture Science selling shower curtains and multidimensional portal devices.

  • portuga@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Me: pour me a guiness, please

    Bartender: here you go mate

    Me: by any chance do you know where I can get a record of the world’s longest mustache

    Bartender: well you won’t believe this…

    • isolatedscotch
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      1 month ago

      Me: Get me some Michelin tires, please

      Mechanic: Here you go mate

      Me: by any chance do you know where I can get a detailed guide of the finest restaurants in the country?

      Mechanic: well you won’t belive this…

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      Me: Another Guinness please
      Bartender: Here you go
      Me: urgh what is this?
      Bartender: A Stout. Why, is it bad quality?
      Me: It seems so. Don’t you have a way of testing this beforehand?
      Bartender: Now that you mention it…

  • Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_Corporation

    Environmental record

    The Ball Corporation has made improvements to its environmental record since 2006, when the company began its first formal sustainability efforts.[50] In 2008 the Ball Corporation issued its first sustainability report and began releases subsequent sustainability reports on its website.[45] The first report was an ACCA-Ceres North American Sustainability Awards cowinner of the Best First Time Reporter award in 2009.[51][citation needed]

    In the Toxic 100 list for 2004, using data from 2002, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) identified the Ball Corporation as the 59th-largest corporate producer of Air pollution in the United States, with an estimated 4.57 million pounds of toxic air released annually.[52] The PERI report for 2008, using data from 2005, ranked the Ball Corporation 54th on its Toxic 100 list; PERI’s report for 2010, using data from 2006, ranked it 65th.[53] The PERI studies indicated major pollutants included glycol ethers and 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene.[54]

    The PERI Toxic 100 Air Polluters list for 2013 ranked the Ball Corporation as 619 in its list of companies producing the most air pollution in the United States.[55] In 2015 Newsweek ranked the Ball Corporation as 70th in their “Green 2015” report, which reviewed the environmental performances of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the United States.[56][57][58]

    • NeatNit
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      1 month ago

      That’s not really relevant to the post, is it? And that kind of praise on Wikipedia usually comes from the company editing its own Wikipedia page and being very picky about which data they cite.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        You’re right, we should discourage any efforts to improve anything because they’re not immediately perfect.

      • papertowels@lemmy.one
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        1 month ago

        Gatekeeping on positive news?

        I’d say it’s relevant because I certainly didn’t know anything about the company the meme is discussing, and that was a fun fact to see. I especially appreciate the wiki link cuz that’s what I wanted to go to after asking such a head scratcher.

        • NeatNit
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          1 month ago

          I know the Wikipedia link is relevant, but specifically the except seems totally disconnected to me from the post. It feels inorganic, to the point I almost doubt OP’s motives. Maybe I’m wrong.

          Anyway I’m not trying to say any of it is untrue, just that it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

          I hope I’m not gatekeeping, but if I’m gatekeeping anything it’s not ‘good news’, it’s what can be posted under a meme post. But as I said, I’m just trying to provide context, I guess it came out pretty gatekeepy so I’ll try to tone that down next time.

          • papertowels@lemmy.one
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            1 month ago

            Kudos for the well thought out and introspective comment.

            It did get me thinking about whether or not these numbers were affected by the purchasing and selling of the various subsidiaries, and if that happened, whether or not it should “count”.

  • Kanda@reddthat.com
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    1 month ago

    I need a pepper mill from the company that invented it Peugeot: I got you, buddy I also need a shitty car that breaks down all the time Peugeot: You’re not gonna believe this

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    The US government casually approaching heatshield fabrication company ltd. asking them to make nuclear warheads for the price of a gazillion dollars.

    Government contract work is a funny thing.