Why?

“A sweeping five-month investigation into the collapse of one of the nation's largest subprime lenders points a finger at a possible new culprit in the mortgage mess: the accountants.

“New Century Financial, whose failure just a year ago came at the start of the credit crisis, engaged in ‘significant improper and imprudent practices’ that were condoned and enabled by auditors at the accounting firm KPMG, according to an independent report commissioned by the Justice Department...

“Some of its accusations echo charges that surfaced about the accounting firm Arthur Andersen after the collapse of Enron in 2001.

“E-mail messages uncovered in the investigation showed that some KPMG auditors raised red flags about the accounting practices at New Century, but that the KPMG partners overseeing the audits rejected those concerns because they feared losing a client…

“Mr. Missal drew an analogy to Enron and said there was evidence that KPMG auditors had deferred excessively to New Century.

“‘I saw e-mails from the engaged partner saying we are at the risk of being replaced,’ Mr. Missal said in a telephone interview about a KPMG partner working on the audit of New Century. ‘They acquiesced overly to the client, which in the post-Enron era seems mind-boggling.’ …

“In one exchange in the report, a KPMG partner who was leading the New Century audit responded testily to John Klinge, a specialist at the accounting firm who was pressing him on a contentious accounting practice used by the company…

“[New Century’s] three founders together made more than $40.5 million in profits from selling shares in the company from 2004 to 2006.”

(“Inquiry Assails Accounting Firm In Lender's Fall.” Vikas Bajaj. The New York Times. March 27, 2008. pg. 1)

WHAT SEPARATES these folks from me? from you? What triggers foolishness in each of us? What are we watching out for?