Red-faced and reeling insurance giant AIG admitted yesterday its balance sheet reflected shoddy accounting going back as far as 14 years. The improper treatment of dozens of reinsurance deals, with Warren Buffett's General Re and other companies, resulted in shareholder equity being inflated by as much as $1.7 billion, or 2 percent of market capitalization, the company said. AIG said the accounting for the deals with General Re in 2000 and 2001 "was improper" because there was no evidence any transfer of risk existed. The mea culpa comes less than 24 hours after Buffett went on the offensive and declared...