economy

Sullenberger is no doubt a heroic figure, but is possibly not a reliable source of trends within our failing economies. I don’t think he could produce statistics that showed how many trained pilots were in the process of retraining to become lawyers.
Your questions as they come:
Will this recession correct the salary differences?
No, recession is about industries and individual firms collapsing right across any industry that is vunerable.
Encourage the smartest youth to pursue "higher" callings?
Your assumptions are that finance and law is a higher calling than piloting a plane?
No, I don’t think anyone is going to see Finance and Law as being the answer to all our problems – in fact the vast majority will see Finance, particularly the inaptly termed ‘high’ finance as having caused most of our current problems. Whilst air travel is not going to be a growth area for a couple of years – if I were offered banking exams or pilots exams right now, the bank could take a running jump…
I think people will more likely say ‘look what a mess this pursuance of undeserved wealth has brought about’ and pursue careers that are meaningful and fulfilling – I predict a return to the ‘hippy culture’ of the 60’s.
The pursuance of wealth has shown itself to be be a false idol, ‘higher callings’ are in the eyes of the beholder – I do not doubt that there are higher callings, I just don’t see the Finance and Legal sectors as being any higher than anything else. If you had suggested ‘Politics’ as one of the higher callings I could have written a helluva lot more and none of it would have been very polite…