The demise of Washington Mutual in 2008 was the biggest bank collapse in United States history.

But despite a settlement last week in the case, the bank’s executives have not been held accountable for their company’s disastrous performance, Gretchen Morgenson says in the new Weekend Business podcast and in her column in Sunday Business. She says that the settlement, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, should be supplemented by further action by other agencies.

The top law schools are expensive, but should all law schools be? Accreditation requirements contribute to the high cost of many lower-tier schools, says David Segal, who reports on the issue on the cover of Sunday Business.

And in a separate conversation, Christina Romer, the University of California, Berkeley, economics professor who was the chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, says an aggressive policy response can blunt the severity of the downturn that comes after a financial crisis.

Expansionary monetary and fiscal policies by the Federal Reserve and the government are desirable in the current situation, she writes in the Economic View column in Sunday Business.

And in my Strategies column, which I discuss in the news section of the podcast, I point out that economic predictions have often been off-base over the last few years. Navigating the economy has been like driving in a dense fog. Caution is advised.

You can find specific segments of the podcast at these junctures: Gretchen Morgenson on WaMu’s settlement (27:25); news headlines (21:41); the expenses of law school (19:08); Christina Romer on the financial crisis (10:05); and the week ahead (1:17).

As articles discussed in the podcast are published during the weekend, links will be added to this post.

You can download the program by subscribing from The New York Times’s podcast page or directly from iTunes.

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