The following are the opening two paragraphs of a blog by Francine McKenna, who as ever is spot on:

Yesterday's appointment of Big 4 accounting firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young to oversee the $700 billion Wall Street bailout program is a slap in the face to the American taxpayer. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been appointed auditor for the bailout program under which Treasury will buy billions of dollars worth of preferred stock in a move to help recapitalize struggling banks. Ernst & Young will provide general accounting support.

But the US Treasury has let wolves into the hen house. All the Big 4 audit firms are complicit in the malaise now sickening the global financial services sector. They are partly to blame for the gangrene that threatens capitalism worldwide. It is an insult to taxpayers that firms with numerous examples of poor performance - and failure to identify some of the largest corporate frauds in history - are now are being asked to audit the biggest financial transaction in history.

The rest is as good.

The policy is mad. Why is it Francine can see that? Why also Prem Sikka, and Dennis Howlett? Why not the US Treasury? The same problem would also happen here, no doubt.

We are in a crisis: a crisis in no small part of the Big 4's making. They are not part of the solution.