Editorials

...For as Mr...

...In his own words, if courts adjudicate claims by premises that are essentially political, "they forfeit the right...

...Unemployment is rampant and the average income for those with jobs has declined nearly 10 percent since 1980...

...Morgan scheme has not won everyone's approval...

...The Mexico - J.P...

...The new bonds offer lenders greater security and a higher yield on interest than they are currently receiving...

...Such a direct connection to U.S...

...To quote Mr...

...But the plan also has drawbacks: it does not provide any link with Mexico's productivity or with fluctuations in the world economy...

...His views that all government economic regulations should be struck down by federal judges as "presumptively unconstitutional" prompted even Judge Bork to comment that such a policy would bring about "a massive shift away from democracy and toward judicial rule...

...Clearly, Mr...

...Water may be welcome in most deserts, but to keep nuclear wastes safe in the Carlsbad cite-for the thousands of years called for by the engineering design-the DOE plutonium-containment repository would have to remain bone dry for the entire period...

...Perhaps in so doing he will also satisfy his higher ambitions...

...That's the bad news...

...They clearly were evident in the recent hearings scrutinizing Judge Anthony M. Kennedy for nomination to the Supreme Court...

...A sudden surge in the value of the dollar, rising world interest rates, another series of earthquakes in Mexico City, a general labor strike, or any other unforeseen adverse conditions could send Mexico back either to its debtors' prison or into default...

...A write-down of 50 percent, for example, would mean a reduction of some $20 billion...

...delegation which negotiated the INF Treaty, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month that both the Soviets and the U.S...

...These nominees deserve close review by the Senate...

...Although it is unlikely to become the region's "model," as some optimistic economists have hoped, it deserves a close and critical look...

...The plan's goal is modest but sound: to reduce a sizable chunk of Mexico's current loan principal ($100 billion) and interest payments, by marking down its present debt in exchange for new Mexican bonds...

...And the World Bank's report outlines bleak forecasts for the future, including a sluggish world economy...

...Reviews of the Mexico plan have been mixed with most assessments between the two extremes of "not going nearly far enough in writing off the debt" and "setting a dangerous precedent...

...But any genuine debt relief plan, including Mexico's proposal, would help balance trade to some degree...

...Morgan & Company, proposed a debt relief scheme...

...Now that's an agreement-one that includes neither waste nor want for either side!te nor want for either side...

...In time-millennial time at least-even Captain Nemo's Nautilus might find sufficient volumes for a subterranian port there...

...Yet the decided differences between the Kennedy and the Bork hearings only served to vindicate the Senate's consent process...

...And it would be "fair": creditor nations deserve business if they can't get cash, and they shouldn't have to compete with nonlenders for it...

...Glitman went on to testify, neither the U.S...

...Glitman, both have an "interest in retaining" what each has worked so diligently to manufacture...

...In Latin America's three largest debtor countries, the inflation rate is measured in three digits...

...One lucky lender, NCNB Corporation of North Carolina, recently sold its entire third-world portfolio at a 50 percent mark-down, but it has started no trend...

...Marked from the start by the uncharacteristically noncon-frontational manner in which President Reagan forwarded the Kennedy nomination-his third attempt to fill the seat of retired Justice Powell-an almost lethargic equanimity settled over the Senate hearings...

...had agreed not to destroy the fissionable material from the nuclear warheads banned by the treaty...

...Last year DOE admitted that the elaborate waste bunker-excavated 2,150 feet beneath the desert-had sprung a series of water leaks...

...Editorials Relieving debt fatigue In January, the World Bank issued its most pessimistic annual report ever and clearly spelled out the human costs of a global economic slowdown...

...In the last analysis, however, concern over the storage of the dismantled INF warhead materials was only a red herring...

...In effect, Mexico has lent the U.S...

...Currently, Mexico's debt service totals $7 billion a year...

...exports would help reduce our trade deficit...

...could gain new markets...

...Interested banks have begun to place bids on percentages of debt they are willing to discount...

...Because collecting some of the debt is better than writing off a whole loan or standing by while a nation unilaterally declares a debt repayment moratorium...

...New generations yield new insights and new perspectives," Judge Kennedy told the committee...

...His decision to absent himself from the appeals court underlines the wisdom of the Senate in rejecting his nomination to the Supreme Court last fall...

...Mexico's annual interest saving would be in the range of $500 million to $1 billion...

...So far, no real solution to this debt conundrum is in sight...

...Mexico, the region's number two debtor, hasn't seen any real increase in GNP since 1982, and its presidentelect has gone on record as seeking to link debt repayments to economic performance...

...THEN THERE WERE NINE In the ultimate gesture of judicial self-restraint, Judge Robert H. Bork is resigning from the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C...

...The Mexicans would gain new purchasing power...

...WASTE NOT, WANT NOT Maynard W. Glitman, who headed the U.S...

...It seems the water-like all government leaks-arrived too early...

...Glitman and his colleagues were thinking of the Department of Energy's permanent nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad, New Mexico, which has been plagued with engineering difficulties...

...But for the moment, in a situation of limited options, Mexico's plan is a pragmatic step in the right direction...

...Since secondary market sales help only lenders and not debtors, Mexico has tried to make its new proposal attractive to some of its 500 U.S...

...On December 29 the Mexican government and its agent, J.P...

...That would be something of a watershed compromise in itself, since it entails an admission by the banks that the face value of Mexico's loans is only about half their current market value...

...Brazil, debtor number one, stopped paying interest on its foreign debt last February, but has decided to make "a new beginning...

...Argentina, debtor number three, has too few dollars in its reserve cupboard to make its next bond payment, and so, on the brink of default, is expected to ask for yet another "bridging loan...

...Perhaps Mr...

...Creditors themselves are beginning to recognize the effects of what the report calls "debt fatigue"-weariness with imposed austerity measures that can wreak political havoc and lead to an instability jeopardizing business in general, not just loan repayments...

...Glitman offered several practical reasons for this decision, but one in particular caught our ear...

...The good news-admittedly, uncertain-concerns Mexico...

...Mexico is hoping for a 40 to 60 percent write-down on the portion of its principal that is eligible for the exchange...

...As part of this effort, Mexico has purchased a $2 billion U.S...

...When queried about his view of original intent by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Kennedy-in sharp contrast to Judge Bork- responded that a mechanical search for"original intent'' is not a useful method of constitutional interpretation...

...One nominee in particular, Bernard H. Siegan to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California, merits attention...

...Debt fatigue makes banks reluctant to provide new capital, further hampering economic recovery...

...As economic growth has shriveled in third-world countries, so have living standards for the majority of their people...

...In the long run, the "not going nearly far enough" school may well be proved right...

...creditor banks...

...to the respect due a natural arbiter, and to lifetime tenure.'' Now that he has been assured of such a tenure on the nation's highest court, Judge Kennedy will do well to bear in mind his own counsel...

...trade-credits...

...According to negotiators, destroying the fissionable material would be difficult and problematic, and final deposition of the material would be even more daunting: where on earth (or under it) would the respective governments put all that nuclear waste...

...Treasury Bond that will be worth $10 billion when it matures in twenty years...

...nor the Soviet Union ever really wanted to dismantle the warhead material in question...

...Other proposals for resolving the Latin American debt crisis abound...

...One committed to his particularist views deserves to be free of constraining federal robes...

...Many banks prefer to sell their loans to other investors on the secondary market, so that they can receive direct and immediate payment...

...This plan has the laudable feature of splitting the cost of the bad loans between creditors and debtor...

...It would serve no purpose to have a Constitution that simply enacted the status quo...

...That process will be put to the test again next month when the Senate takes up twenty-seven other Reagan nominees to lower federal courts...

...In countries with new and fragile democracies, such as Brazil and Argentina, promises of a better future already seem broken...

...Bork would rather convince the public of his constitutional and political theories than remain a second-level player on the federal bench...

...Judge Kennedy, by contrast, cautioned in his confirmation hearings that the "expanded role of the courts tends to erode the boundaries of judicial power...

...2 billion in exchange for the right to advertise that its new Mexican securities will be "backed by the American government...

...Brazil will pay $350 million on the $900 million interest bill that came due last month...

...The U.S...

...With large segments of the third-world population forced back into abject poverty, political and social pressures are mounting...

...This tactic allowed Argentina to scrape by last year...

...Why would Mexico's creditor banks be interested in such a scheme...

...Such a write-down would significantly reduce Mexico's overall principal and its annual interest payment, offering some immediate and long-term relief...

...He wishes to vindicate his judicial views and take on his critics...

...One of the more compelling argues that instead of swapping old debt for new, debt be exchanged for U.S...

...Consider Latin America, which owes half the third-world debt, and, compared with Africa, has the best chance of repaying...

...bond will serve as collateral for new Mexican bonds, which will be issued at a fluctuating interest rate to the highest bidders at a debt auction in March...

...Whether Ronald Dworkin is correct (New York Review of Books, December 17, 1987) that following the defeat of the Bork nomination, "The standard of 'original intention,' as a strict and exclusive limit on the grounds of legitimate Supreme Court decisions, is probably dead," such constitutional questions will continue to be an essential locus in all future proceedings on federal judicial appointments...

...the U.S...

...It seems both sides are a "little short" on fissionable material for their as yet unbanned warheads...

...The idea that the Framers of the Constitution made a covenant with the future is what our people respect...

...Despite their efforts, engineers have not been able to stop the flow, now at 1.5 gallons per day...

...However, the secondary market is currently operating somewhere between a standstill and a crawl, a pace that could change at any time...

...What has grown is indebtedness, by some 6.25 percent, reaching over $1 trillion last year...