What's wrong with this picture?

The late, great, suburban Congressman Henry Hyde had an insatiable appetite for a staple that currently seems to be in short supply in Washington.

Ideas.

Mr. Hyde was a collector of ideas and his office reflected a career of meetings with some the world's greatest thinkers and leaders during which he absorbed ideas. The walls of his Capital Hill office were covered with photos, letters, proclamations, trinkets and treasures from foreign fact-finding missions, such as his prized jeweled dagger.

His desk was always layered with so much paperwork, file folders and stacks of books to read that the credenza took the surplus.

I thought of Henry Hyde, the Bensenville Republican who died last November, while watching that big White House summit aimed at ending the latest financial chaos.

This is what the meeting looked like:

What's wrong with this picture?

Where were all the important papers, flip charts and pie graphs, so that all in attendance would know what was to happen with our $700 billion dollars?

If the "devil is in the details" as Wall Street "experts" kept telling us, shouldn't there have been at least a few files present to help explain those details?

Maybe they had just tidied up for the photo and shoved their papers under the table. Maybe the details are scribbled on yellow Post-its in their pockets. Maybe the aides and other flunkies who normally surround such gatherings, ready to whisper information and pass along important notes concerning lunch reservations, were holding onto the paperwork.

I'm sure that Messrs. McCain and Obama needed the coffee in those fine White House china cups as they must be tired from so much positive campaigning. But the expanse of walnut in front of officials who are tackling our latest 9/11 is not very reassuring.

If it is such a mess and they are working so hard to solve it, shouldn't there have been a mess of papers and a few crumpled-up diagrams instead of a few, blank 3 by 5 cards?

It almost appeared as though Mr. Bush was waiting for news cameras to leave the room so he could open up that small wooden box in front of him, remove a pack of cards and start dealing hands of Texas Hold-em to the attendees.

Come to think of it, that might have produced a better hand for all of us than the one we are being dealt.

Seriously, when you're paying your bills or doing your taxes at the end of the year, does your desk or kitchen table look like that?

•When the immediate economic crisis is well behind us, you can be certain that the cause will be thoroughly researched and proper blamed assessed.

We really don't have to wait for a big investigation to reveal the cause.

It is as obvious as a GOP elephant's nose.

The financial collapse was allowed to happen just the same way as the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks: intelligence.

Human intelligence.

A lack of intelligent prevention by human beings to head off the problems.

Only the end-of-the-world-is-upon-us crowd would make a connection between what I'm about to tell you and the economic calamity we're in.

A standard inscription on all U.S. coins since 1938 has been "In God We Trust." Last year, when thousands of newly-minted one-dollar George Washington coins were issued and put into circulation, they were missing that motto, "In God We Trust."

The government regrets the error.

• Memo to the businessman sitting in front of me on a flight from Chicago to Arizona last week: I hope you aren't a pivotal player in fixing all that is wrong with Wall Street.

You see sir; a crammed airplane is not the best place to type a top-secret corporate memo on your computer. You never know who might see it.

The man, a management company executive and apparently the firm's legal counsel, was sitting right in front of me during the flight. His seat was angled back but the one next to him wasn't. Therefore, his glowing laptop with a very large font was directly in my line of sight about 12 inches away.

It was nearly impossible to miss the memo he was writing that listed "talking points for executive committee." The memo named and offered extensive details of a large client who was "not being informed of an impending bankruptcy."

After finishing off the memo, the passenger scrolled up to the top and typed "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY."

I'm certain he thought that was true at the time he wrote it.

Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com.