Liu pledged to strictly control risks from lending to local governments and from non-bank lending a crucial but now strained source of financing for private industry.

SHANGHAI China’s top banking regulator says the country’s lenders have risks under control, despite concerns that massive local debts and ripple effects from failed informal lending schemes threaten the country’s financial stability.

In some cases, the companies are going unpaid by customers embroiled in debt problems of their own, and sometimes they have used the money borrowed to invest not in manufacturing but in speculative investments of their own.

“It is undeniable that local government financing platforms have not been prudently managed. A lack of monitoring mechanisms and other problems have created a number of risks,” he said.

China’s commercial banks have an average capital adequacy ratio of more than 12 percent and ample provisions to cover any loans gone sour, Liu said in outlining the sector’s relative strengths.

UBS economist Tao Wang puts informal lending at between 2 trillion and 4 trillion yuan ($314 billion-$628 billion), or up to 10 percent of China’s GDP.

At the same time, Liu acknowledged concern over the estimated 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) in debts or about 27 percent of GDP owed by local governments that have borrowed heavily to help support stimulus-related construction projects.

But an unknown amount of bank loans have gone into private lending, where pyramids of high-interest loans are collapsing as mostly smaller and medium-size private companies defaulted on debts.

China’s mostly state-run banks have curbed lending as regulators have tightened monetary policy while requiring them to keep record levels of reserves to help cool inflation.

“Risk exposure has been effectively curbed,” he said.

Liu said that real estate-related lending accounts for 10.4 trillion yuan ($1.6 trillion) of total loans, well below levels in other countries, and that stress tests had found that the banks were in “general control of real estate risks.”

Some analysts have expressed concern over what they say is a significant amount of “off-balance sheet” lending, however, that may eventually pose a greater threat in the longer term.

The government has intervened, ordering banks to relax repayment terms and loosen credit for small and medium-size enterprises,

He also noted that China’s total public sector debt remains at 50 percent, below the conventional warning level of 60 percent and well below levels in the U.S. and Europe.

He promised strict control of local government borrowing and use of loan guarantees and an improvement to transparency in government budgets.

In remarks to a conference Wednesday in Beijing, Liu accused analysts and rating agencies for “bad-mouthing” China’s banks and economy, saying they were underestimating China’s capacity for reform and management.

She says China’s massive state-run banks would face little impact from some of those loans turning bad. A bigger risk is Wenzhou’s credit squeeze spreading to other parts of the world’s No. 2 economy.

But he added that the government and banking regulators had the foresight to take effective action, saying that “overall risks are controllable.”

Ultimately, the government is responsible for such loans, Liu said. But he noted that local governments also have significant assets that can be used to help repay debts.

“We are generally concerned about local government financing loans, real estate loans, shadow banking and other areas of potential risk,” Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said in remarks released Thursday on the CBRC’s website.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) Garry Shandling, Kevin Pollak, Margaret Cho and other comedians are onboard for a festival at which they will curate classic films, provide commentary about them — and perform their own comedic material to boot.

The first Wayne Federman International Film Festival will be held January 12 to 14 at the Cinefamily in Los Angeles.

Federman appeared in an episode of “The Larry Sanders Show,” which starred Shandling,Wholesale Juicy Couture jackets, and has also had small roles in “40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Legally Blonde” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Federman has recruited six comedians for the festival, and each of them will curate one film. They will introduce the movie and participate in a Q&A afterward.

On the first day of the festival, Shandling will present a screening of Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy,” followed by Cho’s presentation of John Schlesinger’s “Darling.”

The second day will see Paul F. Tompkins presenting Mike Leigh’s “Topsy-Turvy,” after which Doug Benson will present “Cocktail” as part of his ongoing series “Doug Benson’s Movie Interruption.”

Kevin Pollak will help close the festival with his presentation of “The In-Laws,” which starred Peter Falk and Alan Arkin. That will be followed by Andy Kindler’s presentation of Albert Brooks’ “Modern Romance.”

Admission to each presentation is $10, except for the “Cocktail” screening, which will cost $12.

Wear them with a dramatic ensemble or a daytime look (pencil or flare skirt, jeans, men’s trousers, basically anything).

After sifting through my closet full of platforms and Mary Janes with studs, spikes, snakeskin, straps, ribbons, I actually had nothing to play down a dramatic dress as Stacey Keibler has done here.

And, of course, pumps like this never go out of style.

The leggy actress paired her bright print dress with just what it needed: a simple, mid-height pump thats comfortable as well as chic. While I still dont have that basic black pump, dots.com does — for $16.

Sometimes you are longing for the haut-est, brightest, newest trends only to realize that you just need something simple and elegant.

By Sasha Charnin Morrison for UsMagazine.com. To read more of the Recessionista blog, click here.