Here's why the US doesn't have to pay off its $31 trillion mountain of debt, according to Paul Krugman

Jennifer Sor
Mon, May 22, 2023 

Franck Robichon/Reuters

The US government doesn't have to pay off its $31 trillion debt, Paul Krugman said.


The government debt can't be compared to something like a household's finances, Krugman said.


"When governments for one reason or another run up large debts, it is, as far as I can tell, unusual to pay those debts off."

The US doesn't actually have to pay off its $31 trillion mountain of debt, according to top economist Paul Krugman, hitting back at the idea that government finances can be compared to household balance sheets in an op-ed weeks before the US possibly defaults on some obligations.

Though individual borrowers are expected to pay off debts, the same isn't true for governments, Krugman argued in a column for the New York Times on Friday. That's because unlike people, governments don't die, and they gain more revenue with each passing generation.

"Governments, then, must service their debts – pay interest and repay principal when bonds come due – but they don't necessarily have to pay them off; they can issue new bonds to pay principal on old bonds and even borrow to pay interest as long as overall debt doesn't rise too much faster than revenue," he added.

Though the debt-to-GDP ratio hovered around 97% last year, interest payments on that debt is only around $395 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget, or around 1% of last year's GDP.

Historically, it's also unusual for governments to pay off large debts, Krugman said. Such was the case for Great Britain, which has largely held onto the debt it incurred as far back as the Napoleonic wars.

Krugman's argument comes amid growing contention over the US debt level, with policymakers still sparring over the conditions they want to raise the country's borrowing limit. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he would reject a short-term debt ceiling increase unless spending cuts are negotiated, having proposed a bill that would slash around $4.5 trillion on spending.

Congress now has less than two weeks to raise the borrowing limit before the government could potentially run out of cash, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned. A default on the country's obligations could result in catastrophe for financial markets, experts have warned. Krugman has called for the debt ceiling to be abolished, as the risk of a financial crisis offers Republicans a "choke point" on fiscal policy.

Space station welcomes 2 Saudi visitors, including kingdom's 1st female astronaut

Mon, May 22, 2023 


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The International Space Station rolled out the welcome mat Monday for two Saudi visitors, including the kingdom's first female astronaut.

SpaceX's chartered flight arrived at the orbiting lab less than 16 hours after blasting off from Florida. The four guests will spend just over a week there, before returning to Earth in their capsule.

The 270-mile-high (430-kilometer-high) docking puts the space station population at 11, representing not only Saudi Arabia and the U.S., but the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

UAE's astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi greeted them with dates, a traditional Arab welcome.

“This shows how space brings everyone together,” said Saudi Arabia's first female astronaut, Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher. “I'm going to live this experience to the max.”

Saudi fighter pilot Ali al-Qarni dedicated the visit to everyone back home. “This mission is not just for me and Rayyanah. This mission is also for the people with ambition and dreams.”

The Saudi government is picking up the multimillion-dollar tab for both of them.

John Shoffner, a Knoxville, Tennessee, businessman who started a sports car racing team, is paying his own way. Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is their chaperone. She now works for Axiom Space, the Houston company that organized the 10-day trip, its second to the space station.

The company cited ticket prices of $55 million each for last year's private trip by three businessmen, but won't say how much the latest seats cost.

Only one other Saudi has flown before in space, a prince who rode on NASA's shuttle Discovery in 1985.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

Most powerful space telescope ever built identifies ancient star-studded galaxy


Nina Massey, PA Science Correspondent
Mon, May 22, 2023

Astronomers have used the most powerful telescope ever built to identify a massive, densely packed galaxy 25 million light years away.

Known as GS-9209, the galaxy formed around 600 to 800 million years after the Big Bang, and is the earliest of its kind found to date, researchers say.

The scientists, led by University of Edinburgh experts, used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to reveal the properties of GS-9209 for the first time.

Lead researcher Dr Adam Carnall, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “The James Webb Space Telescope has already demonstrated that galaxies were growing larger and earlier than we ever suspected during the first billion years of cosmic history.

“This work gives us our first really detailed look at the properties of these early galaxies, charting in detail the history of GS-9209, which managed to form as many stars as our own Milky Way in just 800 million years after the Big Bang.

“The fact that we also see a very massive black hole in this galaxy was a big surprise, and lends a lot of weight to the idea that these black holes are what shut down star formation in early galaxies.”

The researchers found that despite being around 10 times smaller than the Milky Way, GS-9209 has a similar number of stars to our own galaxy.

According to the study, their combined mass is around 40 billion times that of our sun, and they were formed rapidly before star formation in GS-9209 stopped.

GS-9209 is the earliest known example of a galaxy no longer forming stars – known as a quiescent galaxy.

The James Webb Space Telescope (Nasa/Alamy/PA)

When the researchers observed it at 1.25 billion years after the Big Bang, no stars had formed in the galaxy for about half a billion years.

The study also suggests there is a supermassive black hole at the centre of GS-9209.

It is five times bigger than astronomers might anticipate in a galaxy with this number of stars.

The discovery could explain why GS-9209 stopped forming new stars, the astronomers say.

When supermassive black holes grow they release huge amounts of high-energy radiation, which can heat up and push gas out of galaxies.

According to the researchers, this could have caused star formation in GS-9209 to stop, as stars form when clouds of dust and gas particles inside galaxies collapse under their own weight.

GS-9209 was first discovered in 2004 by Edinburgh PhD student Karina Caputi, who was supervised at the time by professors Jim Dunlop and Ross McLure at the university’s School of Physics and Astronomy.

The research, published in the journal Nature, was supported by the Leverhulme Trust, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and UK Research and Innovation.

World’s Biggest Nuclear Plant May Stay Closed Due to Papers Left on Car Roof

Shoko Oda
Mon, May 22, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- A week after Japanese regulators postponed the restart of the world’s biggest nuclear power plant due to safety lapses, a careless employee working from home added to the company’s woes.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan’s Niigata prefecture, said an employee placed a stack of documents on top of a car before driving off and losing them.

The mishap is the latest in a string of mistakes for the utility and is likely to further erode the regulator’s confidence in Tepco. Safety lapses and a strict regulatory process have stopped Japan from restarting most of its nuclear reactors shut in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The nation’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, which oversees safety protocols of Japan’s remaining 33 reactors, decided just last week to keep a de facto ban on the power station from resuming operations, saying that the utility’s preventative measures are inadequate.

The utility discovered the breach when a local resident found some of the papers, which were related to dealing with fires and floods. The company is still trying to recover 38 pages of documents. Both the employee and their manager were given warnings and Tepco said it would make sure all staff follow stringent rules on taking documents and information off-site.

Watchdog proposes first set of global rules for crypto sector


Illustration shows representation of cryptocurrency Bitcoin, Ethereum 

and Dash plunging into water

By Huw Jones

Mon, May 22, 2023 

LONDON (Reuters) -International securities watchdog IOSCO unveiled on Tuesday the first global approach to regulating cryptoasset and digital markets, drawing on lessons from last year's collapse of the FTX exchange that fuelled concerns over consumer protection.

The industry, which typically only has to comply with anti-money laundering checks, has been calling for a global approach to regulation as different jurisdictions follow their own rules.

The moves come after crypto exchange FTX began U.S. bankruptcy proceedings last November following a liquidity crisis that prompted intervention from regulators worldwide.

Tuesday's recommendations are a "turning point in addressing the very clear and proximate risks to investor protection and market integrity risks," said Jean-Paul Servais, who chairs the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).

The proposed standards cover dealing with conflicts of interest, market manipulation, cross-border regulatory cooperation, custody of cryptoassets, operational risks, and treatment of retail customers.

The 18 measures planned apply long-established safeguards from mainstream markets to eliminate conflicts of interest between the different parts of a crypto transaction.

The watchdog said it aimed to finalise the standards by the end of the year, and expected its 130 members worldwide to use them to plug gaps in their rulebooks promptly.

IOSCO, an umbrella group of regulators such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Japan's Financial Services Agency, Britain's Financial Conduct Authority and Germany's BaFin, is canvassing public opinion on the regulations.

The step follows the European Union's finalisation this month of the world's first set of comprehensive rules, piling pressure on Britain, the United States and other countries to come up with their own norms.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Clarence Fernandez)

'Leap of faith:' Alaska pursues carbon offset market while embracing oil

Mon, May 22, 2023 



JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska's push to become a bigger player in the clean energy market is in the spotlight this week at a conference convened by its Republican governor, even as the state continues to embrace new fossil fuel production, including the controversial Willow oil project on the petroleum-rich North Slope.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy successfully pushed through the legislature a bill he is expected to sign Tuesday that would allow the oil-reliant state to cash in on the sale of so-called carbon credits to companies looking to offset their carbon emissions. Projects could include credits for improving a forest’s health through thinning or by allowing trees to grow bigger, thereby increasing a forest’s potential to hold carbon.

Lawmakers cast the bill as allowing Alaska to have the best of both worlds — continuing to permit oil drilling, mining and timber activities while also stepping into the potentially lucrative market for sequestering carbon dioxide. But some watching Alaska's foray into this sector wonder if the program will gain traction as Dunleavy and lawmakers have said the aim isn't restricting emissions but generating a new revenue stream.

“There’s kind of a field of dreams quality to this issue. ‘If you plant the trees and create credits, will anyone buy them?’” said Barry Rabe, a political scientist who studies environmental and climate politics at the University of Michigan’s Gerald Ford School of Public Policy.

“What’s just not clear is what that market would look like and whether or not purchasers ... will find that an attractive investment,” he said. “That’s the leap of faith.”

Alaska has no carbon emissions reductions goals or overarching climate plan and relies heavily on oil production. It is also experiencing first-hand the impacts of the changing climate, such as coastal erosion threatening Indigenous villages, unusual wildfires and thinning sea ice.

The Willow project being developed by ConocoPhillips Alaska is the latest to draw international attention to the state’s oil reserves. The project approved by the Biden administration earlier this year could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day. It is being challenged in court by environmentalists who argue the U.S. should be moving away from new drilling in the face of climate change.

Republican Sen. Shelley Hughes said she was not fond of the carbon credit concept but was concerned that without embracing it, the state could face backlash from groups over its support for resource development projects, including its backing of Willow.

“I think that in order to get capital investment into our state, we are going to have to be perceived in a way that is trying to work through all of this,” she said during the recent legislative debate.

The bill that passed last week was one of two proposed by Dunleavy as a way to generate a new form of income for the state, which has struggled with deficits for much of the last decade. It would allow the state to set up carbon sequestration projects on forestland and sell credits to companies seeking to offset their emissions, with 20% of the revenue from such sales going to a state fund that supports renewable energy projects.

The bill also would let the state lease lands to third parties that want to manage sequestration projects of their own, such as reforesting areas burned by wildfire or growing kelp.

It could be several years before the first credit sales occur because of the time it will take to set up a program and develop or vet projects.

Another Dunleavy proposal that would have set up a regulatory system allowing for underground storage of carbon dioxide did not advance this session but remains in play for next year's legislative session.

Dunleavy, meanwhile, is expected to tout the newly passed credit offset plan at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference in Anchorage this week. The governor created the conference in part “to show the world what Alaska has to offer,” spokesperson Grant Robinson said.

Some Republican lawmakers said the measure will allow Alaska to capitalize on the demand for carbon emissions offsets from companies already doing business in Alaska that might otherwise purchase carbon credits elsewhere.

“So if they’re going to do it anyways and they're going to operate (on) Alaskan lands, then why shouldn’t we provide the service of carbon offsets to these companies?" Republican Rep. Kevin McCabe said. “At least then it stays in Alaska and we get some benefit to our state treasury for it.”

Becky Bohrer, The Associated Press

Fast fashion has spawned a mountain of leftover clothes in the Chilean desert that's so massive it can now be seen clearly from space


Matthew Loh
Mon, May 22, 2023 

A woman searches for clothes in the Chilean Desert.

Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images

A gigantic heap of unused clothes in Chile is so big that a satellite can easily spot it.


High resolution images of the clothing dump was posted on May 10 by satellite photo app SkyFi.


Much of the landfill contains clothes that couldn't sell in stores in the US, Europe, and Asia.

A giant dump of unused fast fashion clothing in Chile's Atacama Desert is now clearly visible to satellites.

The still-growing mountain of discarded or unworn clothes — manufactured in Bangladesh or China and sent to retail stores in the US, Europe, and Asia — are brought to Chile when they aren't sold, according to Agence France-Presse.

At least 39,000 tons of those clothes accumulate in landfills in the Atacama Desert, the outlet found in 2021.

On May 10, a high-resolution satellite photo of the discarded clothes was posted in a blog by SkyFi, the developers of a satellite photo and video app.

"The 50 cm resolution image, which is classified as Very High Resolution, was taken using satellite imagery, and it shows how big the pile is compared to the city in the bottom of the picture," the developers wrote.

The clothes can't be sent to municipal landfills because they aren't biodegradable and often contain chemical products, Franklin Zepeda, the founder of EcoFibra, a company that tries to reuse the textiles by making insulation panels, told the AFP.

So the unused garments sit next to Chile's Iquique port, about a mile from some of the city's poorer neighborhoods.

The landfill sometimes attracts migrants and local women, who search the dump for items they can wear or sell, per AFP.

Women search for clothing items in the Atacama Desert

.MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Image

The fast fashion industry aims to give consumers affordable access to fashion trends but contributes between 2 to 8% of the world's carbon emissions, the United Nations found in 2018.

Nearly 85% of all textiles go to dumps every year, and fashion production consumes vast amounts of water and pollutes rivers and streams, Insider's Morgan McFall-Johnsen previously reported.

The Ellen McArthur Foundation, a UK think-tank, estimated that enough clothes to fill a garbage truck are burned and sent to a landfill every second.

Fast fashion's market size is expected to grow to $122.9 billion in 2023, up from $106.4 billion in 2022, according to market research firm The Business Research Company.

New clean fuel rules will hit poorer Canadians the hardest, budget watchdog warns

Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador will see the highest cost from incoming clean fuel regulations, according to the PBO.

Jeff Lagerquist
Thu, May 18, 2023 

 (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov)

Lower-income Canadian households will lose a bigger chunk of their income than the wealthy under Ottawa’s incoming rules to cut the carbon intensity of gasoline and diesel, according to Canada’s’ budget watchdog.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) called the federal government’s Clean Fuel Regulations set to take effect on July 1, 2023 “broadly regressive” in a report published Thursday.

The policy is part of the Trudeau government’s plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Under the rules, fuel suppliers will have until 2030 to cut the quantity of carbon per unit of energy in gasoline and diesel by about 15 per cent below 2016 levels. Assuming the price is passed onto consumers, the report estimates gasoline prices in 2030 will cost an additional $0.17 per litre, and diesel prices an extra $0.16.

For lower-income Canadian households in 2030, that will cost $231 or 0.62 per cent of disposable income, according to the PBO’s analysis. Higher income households are estimated to pay $1,008, or 0.35 per cent of disposable income.

“Lower income households generally spend a larger share of their income on transportation and other energy-intensive goods and services compared to higher income households,” Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux stated in a news release.
Higher Clean Fuel Regulation costs by province

Broken down by province, the PBO found Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador will experience the highest costs, reflecting the greater fossil fuel intensity of their economies.

Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, is calling for the government to scrap the policy in light of the PBO’s findings.

“Canadians are already struggling to afford gasoline and groceries and the last thing we need is another carbon tax that makes life more expensive,” he said in a statement.

Clean Energy Canada, a research group based at British Columbia's Simon Fraser University, called the PBO’s analysis “the worst-case scenario that imagines climate change doesn’t exist and fails to capture the economic benefits of transitioning to cleaner energy,” in a tweet.

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

Doug Ford weakened EV sales in Ontario: General Motors VP

Jeff Lagerquist
Fri, May 19, 2023

Ontario Premier Doug Ford Ford has dismissed the credits as a benefit for “millionaires.” 

(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young)

General Motors’ (GM) head of electric vehicle adoption says the Canadian EV market is “well on its way,” despite slower sales in Ontario.

Hoss Hassani is GM’s vice president of charging and energy. His job is to get drivers behind the wheel of vehicles from the Detroit-based automaker’s expanding electrified lineup. He’s encouraged by zero-emission vehicles taking a near double-digit share of new registrations nationwide in the final quarter of 2022, pointing out that figure is about six per cent in the United States.

But Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and largest vehicle market, isn’t pulling its weight in the shift to cleaner cars and trucks, he told a crowd at this week's EV Charging Expo 2023 in Toronto.

“Ontario, frankly, is a laggard. Toronto specifically, is a laggard,” he said in reference to adoption of electric vehicles.

According to Statistics Canada data, zero-emission vehicles accounted for 9.6 per cent of new light-duty vehicle registrations in the final three months of 2022. Sales were strongest in British Columbia, at 18.6 per cent of new registrations. Quebec followed with 13.9 per cent. In Ontario, zero-emission vehicles accounted for 8.1 per cent.

Hassani says Ontario’s shortfall is largely due to Premier Doug Ford’s 2018 decision to eliminate a rebate that encouraged the sale of more electric vehicles. Shortly after coming into power, Ford’s government slammed the brakes on electric-vehicle incentives worth as much as $14,000 for qualifying EVs priced under $75,000.

“The loss of that incentive did slow down adoption without a doubt. It meant those who wanted to get into an affordable EV had more difficulty doing that,” Hassani told Yahoo Finance Canada in an interview. “We see in B.C. and Quebec, where they have more of that incentive, they have higher adoption.”

Ford has called the EV subsidies a benefit for “millionaires” as he shifted the government's focus to boosting Ontario’s appeal as a hub for electric vehicle and battery manufacturing.

In response to this article, Jennifer Wright, executive director of communications at GM Canada, said to Yahoo Finance Canada in an emailed statement that, "While GM spoke at the EV and Charging Expo in Toronto last week with focus on work that’s needed to advance EV infrastructure, we take issue with your headline and wish to further underscore that GM greatly appreciates Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s tremendous support for the EV transformation that has also enabled GM to be the first full scale EV manufacturer in Ontario and Canada with our BrightDrop EV factory in Ingersoll.”

Todd Smith, Ontario’s Minister of Energy, spoke at the EV Charging Expo event on Thursday, touting the growing footprint of global automakers in the province focused on an electrified future. However, a spokesperson for Ontario minister of economic development Vic Fedeli on Friday dismissed the idea of reintroducing the EV credit program created by the previous Liberal government.

“Their credits did nothing to build the future of auto manufacturing in Ontario, and instead were used by people who didn't need them to buy cars made somewhere else,” Vanessa De Matteis said in email.

“Our government has taken a different approach, securing billions of dollars of electric vehicle investments and making sure Ontarians can buy electric vehicles made in Ontario by Ontario workers."

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

ONTARIO

Protesters at Marineland hold 'memorial' for Kiska the killer whale on Niagara park's opening weekend

'#RIPKISKA' read one of the signs.

Story by Cara Nickerson • CBC

May 22, 2023

There was a crowd outside Marineland on Saturday, but those holding signs and gathered out front weren't there to visit the controversial theme park in Niagara Falls, Ont.

The 100 or so protesters stood at the roadside, as the park opened to visitors for the first time this season, were there to condemn Marineland for years of alleged animal abuse and remember Kiska, the last killer whale in captivity in Canada, who died there this past March.

'#RIPKISKA' read one of the signs.

In the years leading up to Kiska's death, animal rights activists advocated for the whale's release back into the wild.

The animal rights groups that organized the protest, Last Chance for Animals and UrgentSea, played footage of Kiska ramming her head against the glass of her tank on a banner van during the protest.

Jennifer Jamieson, an animal rights advocate from Stoney Creek, Ont., said Saturday's protest brought up a mix of emotions for her.

"We're glad that [Kiska's] no longer suffering but we still have work to do," she said.

From visitor to protester

Jamieson said before she began advocating for the animals in captivity at Marineland, she was a visitor.

"I used to take my children there," she said.

Jamieson said she used to run a home daycare centre and would take the children on trips to Marineland to learn about marine animals. It only took a few trips to the park, she said, to realize "there was nothing educational" about the park.

"That is why I started advocating for the animals, because I actually went there as a visitor and I was disgusted with the surroundings and the habitats that these wild animals were living in."

In 2014, Jamieson successfully petitioned her child's school to cancel a planned class trip to Marineland. The school changed the destination to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington instead.


Beluga whales can be seen in this aerial image of Marineland, taken on May 19, 2023.

© Patrick Morrell/CBC

Marineland did not respond to CBC Hamilton's recent request for an interview.

Its website says trips to the park help teachers "bring science curriculum to life for your students in a memorable and exciting way."

When Marineland posted on Facebook this past week about the park's opening day, dozens of people commented saying they were planning to attend this year or enjoyed an aspect of the park, which also includes rides and at least one rollercoaster.

Jamieson said she doesn't believe in shaming people who still visit Marineland.

"I'm all about educating and creating awareness," she said, adding that some visitors likely "don't know" about the park's alleged animal abuse.

"I'm not comfortable with using the word shame, or shaming people for having gone there before, or being there the day [of the protest]."

'We're not going anywhere': former trainer

For some protesters, the goal is to see the animals removed from the park and rehomed to wildlife sanctuaries.

Phil Demers, former Marineland trainer and co-founder of UrgentSea, said he thinks they are getting closer to that goal.

"The protest was a very powerful expression of our resolve that we're not going anywhere until Marineland themselves resolves to part ways with any use of animals for entertainment or captivity and ultimately retire them to better lives," he said.

Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati told CBC Hamilton last week he also supports a move "away from animals."


Marineland opened for the season on May 20. 

The park is shown here May 19, 2023, a day before it opened.

© Patrick Morrell/CBC

Demers said Saturday's protest was largely shielded from visitors entering the park by the tarp-covered fences, but he said he looked into the parking lot several times throughout the day.

"You could count 15 to 20 [vehicles] at most at any time and that was about it," he said.

CBC Hamilton asked Marineland for the ticket sale numbers for its opening weekend, but has not yet received a response.

Voices: Stilettos are ‘foot prisons’. Let’s bring the patriarchy to heel

Opinion by Victoria Richards • May 21,2023

The Independent 

TOPSHOT-FRANCE-FILM-FESTIVAL-CANNES© AFP via Getty Images

Ionce heard a guy describe shoes as “foot prisons”. He was part of the “barefoot” movement, people who choose to stomp around without shoes or boots or wellies or wedges or heels. Talking to him, I got the impression that to certain nomadic sorts, being tied to a life of leather and laces is to lose one’s sole [sic]. (Sidenote: he also described drinking Coke as “poison”).

Fans of this rather renegade movement refer to it as “grounding” or “earthing” – touching the earth with bare skin. One study, published in the National Library of Medicine, found that “earthing” helped to improve sleep and reduce pain, due to the “transfer of electrons from the earth to the human body”.

It may sound wild and extreme, but if you’ve ever worn three-inch heels to a wedding for 12 hours, chances are that you too became a born-again member of the barefoot movement at about the time the DJ started playing “Come On Eileen”. The “transfer of electrons” from the earth is helped vastly by seven shots of tequila, trust me.

That’s why it’s so gratifying to see the likes of Jennifer Lawrence – J Law! Actual Katniss Everdeen! – refusing to abide by the unspoken “No Crocs at Cannes” rule and tripping down the red carpet in a red Christian Dior gown and flip flops, so that she could actually be comfy, for once. What a woman! What a maverick!

I salute J Law and those like her: Cate Blanchett, who shed her stilettos as she took to the stage at a party hosted by Variety magazine and the Golden Globes as a symbol of solidarity with women in Iran; Kristen Stewart, who ditched her Louboutins in protest at the dress code at Cannes in 2018, saying “things have to change immediately”; Julia Roberts, who took hers off and walked up the steps barefoot.

In 2015, despite not explicitly mandating heels for the red carpet, only “black tie/evening dress”, the festival faced a huge backlash after it was revealed that a group of women had been turned away from a screening of the film Carol for wearing flats – a move that was criticised by the actor Emily Blunt for undermining “equality”. “Everyone should wear flats, to be honest,” Blunt said. “We shouldn’t wear high heels. That’s very disappointing, just when you think there are these new waves of equality.”

And Natalie Portman recently laid into the ways in which women are expected to carry themselves at Cannes, contrary to their male counterparts: “How we’re supposed to look, how we’re supposed to carry ourselves, the expectations are different for you all the time,” she said. “It affects how you behave, whether you are buying into or rejecting it. You’re defined by the social structures upon you.”

The list of women rejecting rigid dress codes at glitzy formal events is nothing new: in 2014, actress Emma Thompson famously carried her heels on stage at the Golden Globes while also holding a martini glass, and revealed the truth about why all women carry plasters in their purses on a night out: “I just want you to know, this red, it’s my blood,” she said, referring to the red colouring of her Louboutin stilettos.

If you’ve ever squeezed your trotters into a pair of deceptively comfortable stilettos (comfortable, at least, in the shop), you’ll know the unique and exquisite pain after you’ve been standing up for.... ooh, approximately half an hour.

It’s then that it begins: the slow burn on the balls of your feet, the tight compression of your little toes trying to shuffle over to where the big toes are meant to be. As for toes, well, you don’t know anything about them anyway, because they’re completely numb. Eventually you start shuffling in an awkward hunch every time you have to go to the loo, or pose for a photo, looking more like a troll than a triumph. Heels are the worst. Ban them.

Who amongst us hasn’t kicked off their shoes beneath a table at a wedding or a posh dinner, only to realise the fatal flaw: once they’re off, they ain’t never going back on. Suddenly your feet have a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card, they’re hot and swollen and six sizes bigger than they were when you tried those dainty kittens on in the shop, when you “oohed” and “aahed” over the delicate stitching. “These are the ones,” you crooned to yourself. “They make me look like Tinkerbell.”

But now Tinkerbell can’t walk properly. Now, squeezing Tinkerbell’s feet back into her size 7s is as painful as childbirth.

Now, it is an inescapable fact that high heels look good, they are sexy, don’t get me wrong; they’re up there with pencil skirts and red lipstick and leather and zips and all the good things, and if women feel good in them and want to wear them for them, I’m all for it. But let’s not try and pretend they’re comfortable, ladies, please. We’re amongst friends, we can tell the truth.

But it’s no coincidence that heels have become a bastion of the beauty ideal; that in the 50 Shades of Grey world of confected heteronormative attraction, men wear suits and women wear heels. The patriarchy has a thousand blisters to atone for.

Like women in heels, do you? Why don’t you try squeezing your size 10s into a vertiginous piece of plastic and wobble on them for hours after five glasses of champagne?

Foot prisons. I’m breaking free. Now I just need to find my file.