The trouble is, in no way do they act like they are "crucially important for a working economy" (which i agree with). They abuse their position at every opportunity.

We might as well turn "audits" over to the short sellers like Hindenburg Research, at least they make money by exposing rotten accounts rather than hiding them.

The fact that being an activist short seller has become a business model in the last ~8 years tell you how bad the likes of EY are.

Exactly what good did Moody’s do with 2008 and SVB?

Moody, Standard & Poors and Fitch are RATING agencies.

RATING agencies are different from AUDITING companies different from CONSULTANCIES.

Rating agencies were somewhat restructured after 2008 (but are still kind of edgy) - because they did literally write AAA on a piece of paper for money. But there ratings were opinions and had no real legal meaning.

I was about to say aren't there only 4 auditing agencies in the entire US after the fifth fucking imploded after the Enron scandal due to their reputation being tarnished?

No, there are more. But auditing an S&P500 corporation is pretty complex. I am not in the auditing S&P 500 corporation business and it looks like there may be six - but the Big4 literally seem to do 491/497 companies. I’m not sure I am too concerned about the auditing quality of the Big4 tbh though…

Enron’s problem was the “consulting AND auditing” mess with conflict of interest if I am not mistaken.