Ah plankbender an optimist after me own heart
China indeed has an enormous trade surplus which I suspect the Chinese will use strategically rather than just hiding their heads in their hands and screaming "We all doom..la".
But I don't think it will be enough.
Those young people that are currently learning to fly who are REALLY keen will keep on and when things eventually pick up will be well placed to take advantage...many will give up and do something else...has always been thus. I learned to fly in the early 80s during that recession, went to PNG because there were NO jobs in Oz...had a ball. Africa and PNG are still there. Expectations will need to be re-adjusted - LH seat of shiny jet within 3 years of first solo will be replaced with L/H of Cessna Caravan for several thousand hours but that won't bother the dedicated inordinately.
Whomever is in power in the US in January will be more passenger than leader. What needs to be done is so politically unpalatable that I don't think either has it in them - I suspect Obama will make it worse and McCain will be a mere spectator - either will be a one term wonder, as will Rudd. Maybe in 4 years time the next POTUS might do the right thing. As Churchill said "The Americans can always be relied upon to do the right thing - after they have exhausted every other possibility".
This is not the end of the world merely the bursting of the latest economic bubble in a long line of bubbles - until next time.