1) I am biased against the Big 4, as a business, as a model for providing shareholder assurance of true and accurate financial statements. It’s just not happening. So, all firms being equal, none of them are providing a service to shareholders consistently. The cost of their errors and omissions, aiding and abetting, to their clients shareholders, to their employees, to the capitalist system, to their vendors, to other stakeholders is too high.

2) Yes, the firms are too big. But how can they provide assurance, certified financial statements, to multinational global companies if they are not global behemoths, with offices everywhere to serve their clients seamlessly? See 1). They’re not doing it. The model is broken. The certification of financial statements is worthless. Investors ignore the report because it is a “negative assurance”: nothing is wrong that we could see or that our very precise and limited , to limit our liability, procedures could identify, right now. The audit has not prevented fraud, errors, lawsuits on all sides, lawbreaking by management, restatements, “unexpected” liquidity crises, backdating scandals, subprime crisis, and the kind of giant errors in “judgement” and other woes that we see in the modern pubic company. Give me a $1 billion + revenue company that has escaped these issues in the last ten year, is a well run, honest, ethical company because it is a well audited company and then we will have a place to start over.

You’ve posted several times now that “small is beautiful” but I think it’s time to just state the truth. Each of the Big 4 is TOO BIG to effectively (let alone efficiently) manage itself. Their size gets in the way, constantly.

Anybody who is looking for valuable experience and accelerated growth should spend a few years in one of the Big 4 firms. Anybody who is looking for a long-term career in one of them should be advised to think twice — or more.