BILLIONS LOST BY FEDS By JOHN CRUDELE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 28, 2002 -- WASHINGTON complains about deceptive corporate accounting. But the government last year misplaced an incredible $17.3 billion because of shoddy bookkeeping, or worse. Let me put that into numbers so you can fully appreciate the amount. It's $17,300,000,000 - the price of a few dozen urban renewal projects, a nice size fleet of warships or about half the tax cut that everyone made such a fuss about last summer. Disappeared. Gone. Nowhere to be found. In fact, the government's accounting was so atrocious that the General Accounting Office -...