sabre

the only real upside for being in accounting is stable employment and if you end up making partner of a large practice and then you make the big bucks.
The downside is the work makes you hate your life, long tedious hours doing dull work, your salary and bonus both suck, and you may be looked down upon as not good enough to do finance.

sabre

1.  I say this having only taken CFA L1 (and only partially through the L2 material), so take it with a grain of salt, but based on my experience, I would disagree that any one portion of the CFA is more difficult than the entire CPA exam.  From a pure breadth of information standpoint that covers a broad range of topics, there’s absolutely no doubt that the CFA an entirely different animal than the CPA, but that’s also the main source of it’s difficulty level.  Conceptually, there’s nothing mind-bending (at least nothing I’ve encountered).  I found several topics to be difficult (mostly in macroeconomics and derivatives), though most of the material is very logical.  
The CPA on the otherhand - and accounting in general - is like learning a new language.  You have to will yourself into understand concepts that are not easily relatable to some logical, everyday conclusion.  That makes the CPA and studying for the CPA extremely mind-numbing.  On top of that, there are concepts in the FAR and REG sections of the CPA that are vastly more advanced than any one topic on the CFA.  I am sure anybody with their CPA license finds the concepts addressed in the FRA portions of the CFA to be borderline elementary accounting, and yet a majority of candidates struggle with this section specifically.
It’s very difficult to compare the 2 exams.  The CPA is broken into 4 sections, each of which contains the amount information that can be found in one standard CFA book.  In that sense the entire CPA exam encompasses the amount of material in any one level of the CFA.   As it stands, individuals (or “candidates” if you will) that take the CPA, sit for each exam independently.  They devote all of their time leading up to an exam preparing for one topic - yet the pass rates are still between 45% - 50% (even the NYS Bar Exam has a 70% pass rate).  What’s  more, everybody sitting for the CPA exam has the equivalent to a master’s degree in accounting, as the exam is prohibitively cut off to anybody else.  
With all of that said, I admittedly found studying for CFA L1 a lot more exhausting and grueling.  Additionally, the exam itself was an entirely different (and more difficult) experience than any one portion of the CPA (FAR included).  When I passed L1, I was much more satified by my accomplishment than I was after passing the first 3 portions of the CPA (nothing compares to passing that last part of the CPA).  I imagine though if the CPA was one exam, offered once a year, covering the entire range of topics it currently does, there would be no contest - the CPA (in my pre-L2 eyes) would be more difficult.
2.  I agree.  Accounting is a better career decision as it’s in demand and it provides you with a transferrable skill to just about any industry and geographic region.  Finance is so much more interesting though.  Plus, in order to avoid the random accounting equivalent to the “Collateral Analyst Cash Accelerator” position, you’ll be told by a lot of people (including your professors) that you must go to the Big 4, and once you do that - well that’s a different topic…