In other words, the Land of the Free had maxed out its credit card and was legally barred from borrowing a penny more.

That's pretty sad when you think about it.

The supposedly richest country in the world is such a deadbeat that they had borrowed the maximum amount of money as permitted by its own law.

They call it the 'debt ceiling'. And the only way to borrow more is for Congress to pass a new law… something that, embarrassingly enough, has occurred dozens of times over the past few decades.

The US is undoubtedly addicted to debt.

So much so, in fact, that even when the government hits the debt ceiling, it still doesn't deter them from borrowing.

Rather than shocking them into taking drastic action to reduce the debt, they just find creative ways to keep borrowing that don't –technically- count towards the debt ceiling.