Wishing will make it so???

I read an article recently about a woman who tested that old axiom. She wished for certain things for a year, and all -- or most -- of her wishes came true. Maybe I'm just old and cynical. I used to believe whatever I could envision would happen, but that was many moons ago. These days I'm skeptical. Here are a few wishes I'd like to see come true, not necessarily in the order of top priority:

• I wish all elected and appointed politicians at the local, state, and federal level would spend taxpayer money as if it were their own and live within a strict budget like they expect us to do;
• I wish homeless people, poor working mothers (parents), and common folk had the same power and respect as millionaires, billionaires, politicians, and power mongers;
• I wish cures could be found for all catastrophic diseases - cancer, alzheimer's, ALS, etc.
• I wish excellence, kindness, honesty, courage would be rewarded and failure, dishonesty, meanness, sneakiness punished. Before you say "OH but dishonesty and crime ARE punished!" stop and think about this one. That may be true for poor crooks but not rich ones. Think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and various politicians and CEO's and you'll see where I'm going with this wish.
• I wish some of the excellent writers I know could have the honors, sales, and recognition they deserve. This goes along with the prior wish that excellence should be rewarded.

My wish list is much longer than that but those are a few of the less selfish and frivolous ones. Maybe tonight I'll pick one at random, wish upon a star and see what happens.