The nation’s economy used to have too much greed and not enough fear of the future, but now has too much fear and could use a little more “greed” – spending.

Lawrence H. Summers, the White House economic adviser, calls it “the paradox at the heart of the financial crisis. “

“In the past few years, we’ve seen too much greed and too little fear; too much spending and not enough saving; too much borrowing and not enough worrying,” Summers said Friday in a speech to the Brookings Institution. “Today, however, our problem is exactly the opposite.”