As if things weren't bad enough, we now have a trade deficit in dogs with China. Evidently, China can make dogs faster and cheaper (but are they of higher quality?).

Okay, seriously...From the May 25th New York Daily News:

Thirty dogs, given a reprieve from death at a Beijing animal shelter, are being flown to Long Island, where they'll be put up for adoption. The pooches - basset hounds, Dalmatians, German shepherds, terriers and, yes, Pekingese - land at Kennedy Airport tonight.

The North Shore Animal League in Port Washington and the International Fund for Animal Welfare raised $30,000 to bring the dogs over.

I don't want to hear any New Yorkers complain that the economy is in the tank when they can find 30 grand to fly dogs across an ocean and a continent. Have these people ever encountered the concept of opportunity cost?

A side note:

In Beijing, some 41 breeds are verboten, and it's illegal to own a dog taller than 14 inches. Also, the residents of China's capital can't have more than one dog each.

It's illegal in Beijing to own anything but a yip dog? What about seeing eye dogs and such? Alas, another cost of statism.

Update: Perhaps there are no seeing eye dogs for two reasons. Either there are no blind people in China or China is so labor intensive that there are seeing eye people instead of seeing eye dogs.