American Corporations

choi

Schumpeter | The Two Faces of USA Inc; American bosses are divided when it comes to Donald Trump. Economist, July 9, 2016
http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... p-two-faces-usa-inc

Note:
(a)
(i) Schumpeter (name of a noted economist) is a column in of the business section of the Economist.
(ii) The summary of this essay is in the last paragraph: "A sensible economic agenda for America would please—and annoy—both sides of the divide [of USA Inc]. * * * it would listen to the polished sophisticates [who are against Trump] who run America's biggest companies, but also to those business leaders who support Mr Trump [chiefs of small businesses , who root for Trump]."

(b) "On June 29th Mr Trump laid into the Chamber of Commerce, big business's favourite lobbying organisation. 'It's totally controlled by the special-interest groups,' he said, to wild cheers from a crowd in Maine."

lay into : "informal : to angrily attack or criticize"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay%20into

(c) "it has been a golden decade [for Corporate America]. Share prices are near an all-time high * * * Many of the trends that have hurt Middle America have made USA Inc stronger. Big firms have cut jobs to increase productivity and now make 40% of their sales abroad. They are more dominant at home because of a wave of mergers and their mastery of lobbying. They grumble about tax, but have become superb at avoiding it. The top 50 firms paid a cash tax rate of 24% on their global profits in 2015 [Apple 'paid a cash tax rate of 18% in 2015'], compared with an official rate of 39%. Even the big banks have learned to live with more regulation: they are thrashing their European rivals across the globe.  At the very point that swathes of the public say the economy isn't working, USA Inc is on top of the world, occupying all of the ten top spots in the global corporate rankings, measured by market value. Bosses of multinational firms think their country has everything to play for. * * * America's lead in technology has never been bigger."
(i) Middle America (United States)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_America_(United_States)
(Middle America is generally used as both a geographic and cultural label, suggesting a Central United States small town or suburb where most people are middle class, Evangelical Christian, Mainline Protestant or Catholic, and white)
(ii) swath (n; variant: swathe; plural: swaths or swathes)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/swath

The plural form may be "swathes" perhaps because the singular form may be "swathe."
(iii) "Bosses * * * think their country has everything to play for."
(A) play (v): "If you play for a particular team, you are a member of that team. * * * <He used to play for Boston but got traded to New York>"
Learner's Dictionary, undated,
http://learnersdictionary.com/definition/play
(B) play (v): "I want to play for my country"
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/play

(d) "Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, to the Economic Club of New York last month"
(i) chairman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairman
(section 4 Public corporations: three types)
(ii) Economic Club of New York
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Club_of_New_York