You know the bad thing about going through tough times?

A lot of us don't remember when they were a lot tougher.

I mean, we have a whole generation of Wall Street traders who have no memory of the 1987 stock market crash.

Or the last really serious recession back in the late '70s.

Or long gas lines in the early '70s.

We have folks looking at unemployment under 5 percent and equating it with a depression, when it was 25 percent.

Or fretting over inflation at 3 percent, and failing to remember a prime rate not that long ago at 21 percent.

We have politicians bemoaning Americans losing homes and liken it to a time when the majority didn't even have homes.

I'm not saying the pain isn't real.

I am saying the perspective simply isn't there.

Think about it: we have candidates proposing up to a trillion dollars in government aid to do everything from rescue mortgages to cure hangnails.

The hangnail part was a joke.

But there's no joking about the serious dough we're spending to address a crisis, that in the scheme of things, doesn't hold a candle to much more serious crises in our past.

Because most of us forget our past.

Indeed, most haven't even lived it.

I'm not saying we're soft.

I am saying if this is how we define hard....we're something else.

Clueless.

Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com