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Everyone needs prayers

To the Editor,

With whom does one associate when contemplating communal prayers?

Among others, it’s the needy, the destitute, world leaders and not least of all, the politician. Go to church or the synagogue and you’ll most assuredly hear the minister, priest or rabbi praying on their behalf, week in and week out. Seldom do men of the cloth and their parishioners alike fail to make these standard supplications to God.

An exception should be made in the case of the politician. Prayers for him are totally unnecessary. He has no financial worries whatsoever from where he presides dispensing other people’s money, seeing that everyone is sheltered and well-fed. If he lasts a couple of terms in office, he’s all set for life with a nice fat pension. Thank him for all the good he’s done but don’t waste your prayers on him. He doesn’t need them.

The generational welfare recipient also doesn’t need our prayers. From Uncle Sam’s seemingly inexhaustible larder, there’s plenty to go around as purveyed by the empathetic politician. This person is well provided for and at least his temporal needs are met. His prayers are already answered.

Sadly one class of citizens has been grossly neglected. Does one ever hear prayers offered on behalf of the industrialist, the enterprising entrepreneur, big pharma or big oil executives or the wealthy banker? The answer is no.

But these are the people who make all the tough decisions that make the economy click. Oft-maligned, they are conspicuously absent from the prayer list. Without their resourcefulness there would be no food, transportation, medical assistance and cell phones for the politician to disburse. Prayer for the rich should therefore be highly prioritized.

Socialist Finland, in recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, was seven years later in near last place in a bracket of eight recuperating European countries, but has since made a slow but somewhat shaky comeback. How the doughty Finns must pray for the top dogs at Nokia, newcomer Virta and the execs in the forestry product and ship-building industries. What else can they do?

Based on recent figures, Finland’s state spending is 54 percent, compared with our gross federal expenditure, GDP-wise, of only 38 percent. Greater latitude thus exists for U.S. politicians to provide even more substantial largesse.

But let’s play it safe instead. Say a few prayers for the corporate bigwigs here in the USA. In truth, everyone needs our prayers.

Gail Wickstrom

Newell

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