Business

Ford Motor Co. intends to prove that good things come in small packages — really small packages. The company has taken engine downsizing to a new level with its new three-cylinder EcoBoost engine, which has been introduced in Europe and is set to hit the U.S. market next year.

The EcoBoost offers more power than many conventional four-cylinder engines, with fuel economy numbers a hybrid could envy. Early fans are calling it a modern "little engine that could," and Ford is betting that American customers are ready to embrace a three-cylinder engine.

President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have been trading attacks over the issue of American jobs being moved overseas.

The president has pounded Romney for the investments made by his former firm Bain Capital in the 1990s. Not to be outdone, the Romney campaign has suggested most of the money from the president's stimulus program went to create jobs overseas.

Mark Thomas is using a pay phone, but he isn't paying. And physically, he's not even that close to the phone.

He's sitting on a bench on the street in Astoria, Queens, checking email on his netbook. It's grabbing an Internet signal from a military-grade antenna on top of a pay phone down the block.

"It's not the speediest but you can't complain about free, right?" Thomas says.

A spike in iPad demand wasn't enough to offset slower iPhone sales in the third quarter as Apple Inc. reported lower-than-expected revenues, sending its after-hours stock price on a 5 percent dive.

The company announced third-quarter revenue of $35 billion, or $9.32 per share; earlier, Bloomberg had projected $37.22 billion, or 10.37 per share.

For today's show, we've collected three Planet Money radio stories never before heard on the show. All of them deal with people who handle other people's money — a politician's, a workforce's, and even a continent's:

Just How Blind Are Blind Trusts, Anyway?: With questions swirling about Mitt Romney's investments, a look at how blind trusts really work.

This week in The New York Times Magazine, Adam Davidson opens a hard-to-trace offshore company in Belize, which turns out to be a piece of cake:

Lego Group, maker of those iconic plastic building blocks, inspires an almost fanatical following in some quarters. But as a business, it turns out, it came close to going bust by following the hot advice of the day — and then recovered by turning to a more prosaic playbook.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We've been following some big developments today in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal in Britain. Prosecutors are charging eight people - including a former top aide to Prime Minister David Cameron - and a woman who was Rupert Murdoch's top lieutenant. NPR's Philip Reeves reports.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And let's go next to Silicon Valley, California, with a program called NewME, or New Media Entrepreneurship. It's a boot camp to encourage women and African-Americans - two groups that are dramatically underrepresented among technology entrepreneurs. We've been hearing about it this week. Seven participants from across the country are sharing a house in San Francisco. They're getting coached on their business plans, and as Amy Standen of member station KQED reports, they're attempting to perfect the art of the pitch.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with a box office high.

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INSKEEP: The new Batman movie "Dark Knight Rises" set a box office record over the past weekend. There were questions, of course, about how much money it would bring in after Friday's shooting in Colorado in a theater where the movie was showing.

NPR's Mandalit del Barco has more.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And today's last word in business is for Peet's sake.

(SOUNDBITE OF COFFEE GRINDER)

INSKEEP: And that's the sound of a coffee grinder.

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INSKEEP: Really cranking up, there. We have to go along way to get that sound. Actually, it's the sound of a coffee grinder inside NPR. It's a very welcomed sound at MORNING EDITION.

Stop by most any unirrigated farm across the lower Midwest and you'll see crops in distress. Midwestern corn and soybean farmers are taking a beating during the recent drought, but it's not likely to drive many out of business.

Most of those farmers carry terrific insurance, and the worse the drought becomes, the more individual farmers will be paid for their lost crops. The federal government picks up most of the cost of the crop insurance program, and this year that bill is going to be a whopper.

Robert Siegel looks ahead to the week's tech news with Steve Henn. They cover the quarterly reports from the big tech companies.

Think about it — when you order something online, you avoid long lines, there are infinite options at your fingertips, and no one can see your face. So it comes as little surprise, then, when people order food online, they might go a little overboard.

Actually, sometimes a lot overboard.