The difference is in living through it vs just reading about it in the past tense. For example, my grandmother grew up in it and had all sorts of money-related neuroses for the rest of her life. Maybe that was just her, but many Americans of her generation and background lived their lives as if it was going to happen again any day now, apropos of nothing. Just raw fear from terrible memories.

Most people in the US today have no recollection or even second-hand awareness of it. If anything, people today seem far too willing to take on debt for non-necessities that they couldn’t afford otherwise, and far too unaware of how interest accumulates.

Reading about something and experiencing it firsthand are not really the same. But I think it is safe to say that he probably had more going on that just that.