Well, Asad has not been here; I met him in Geneva. But I have met with all of them. I don't anticipate any need for me to go to Geneva or to go to th… - Jimmy Carter

The world has not prepared for the future. During the 1950's, people used twice as much oil as during the 1940's. During the 1960's, we used twice as much as during the 1950's. And in each of those decades, more oil was consumed than in all of man's previous history combined. World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970's and 1980's by 5 percent a year, as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade. I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld from the market. You may be right, but suspicions about the oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum.

In the coming months, there is important work for all of us in advancing international cooperation and economic progress in the cause of peace. Later this spring, the leaders of several industrial nations of Europe, North America, and Japan will confer at a summit meeting in London on a broad range of issues. We must promote the health of the industrial economies. We must seek to restrain inflation and bring ways of managing our own domestic economies for the benefit of the global economy. We must move forward with multilateral trade negotiations in Geneva. The United States will support the efforts of our friends to strengthen the democratic institutions in Europe, and particularly in Portugal and Spain. We will work closely with our European friends on the forthcoming Review Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. We want to make certain that the provisions of the Helsinki agreement are fully implemented and that progress is made to further East-West cooperation. In the Middle East we are doing our best to clarify areas of disagreement, to surface underlying consensus, and to help to develop mutually acceptable principles that can form a flexible framework for a just and a permanent settlement. In southern Africa, we will work to help attain majority rule through peaceful means. We believe that such fundamental transformation can be achieved, to the advantage of both the blacks and whites who live in that region of the world. Anything less than that may bring a protracted racial war, with devastating consequences to all. This week the Government of the United States took action to bring our country into full compliance with United Nations sanctions against the illegal regime in Rhodesia. And I will sign that bill Friday in Washington.

One of the basic principles that I described is to have a uniform payment by the Federal Government for welfare recipients around the country, varying in amount only enough to accommodate changes in the cost of living from one community to another. Another problem with the present system is that the multiplicity of programs not only is confusing to administrators and to those who receive the benefits but also result in almost unconstrained fraud and honest mistakes. This chart shows that 67 percent of the recipients get benefits from two or more programs, 18 percent of the recipients get benefits from five or more different programs; 2 percent of the recipients get benefits from eight or more separate and distinct welfare programs.