Obama's business background

NPR ran a story suggesting that Barack Obama's not-very-long experience at Business International in the 1980s gave him insight into financial markets. As someone who worked there a few years after Obama, I'd say it probably did give him some, though arguably less so than if he'd spent those months at an investment bank -- and of course the pay would've been a lot better, notwithstanding that Obama has made leaving the newsletter-publishing firm sound like a notable act of financial self-sacrifice. Alex Bayer had some elegaic thoughts about Business International here.