As the debt increases, the federal government has to borrow more money from U.S. and foreign investors. But as would-be lenders to the U.S. see America as increasingly insolvent, investors will demand higher interest rates to lend us that money. Higher rates of government borrowing lead to higher rates for home mortgages, credit cards, student loans, car loans, and every other form of borrowing. And, as we’ve seen, these higher interest rates lead to higher price inflation, whether or not the Bureau of Labor Statistics recognizes it as such.
This talks about higher interest rates due to investors being reluctant to purchase US government debt, which is not something we've observed recently. It doesn't talk about higher interest rates due to deliberate action by the Federal Reserve, which is something we've observed recently. Mortgage rates aren't up because of debt, they're up because the Fed raised rates sharply 2022-3, as you can find on a different portion of the Forbes website: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/fed-funds-rate-hist...
I'd actually missed or forgotten the paragraph you quote, but in context it seems pretty disingenuous, using a hypothetical which smoothly transitions to present tense to imply that the debt bogeyman is to blame for what Roy knows very well are actually, in the last few years, consequences of attempts to combat inflation. This only makes me more doubtful of his intellectual honesty.
But the biggest "investor" in US government debt is the Fed, so I don't quite follow how you can separate the two things here. And the other investors are using money that was ultimately issued into existence via lending against reserves, and the Fed controls interest rates by issuing or withdrawing high powered money. And the money the government spends after borrowing it is re-deposited back into the banking system, raising their reserves and letting them issue more loans, further increasing the size of the monetary base and therefore inflation.
Given that it's all connected I don't quite follow why you are cleanly dividing them here.
As the debt increases, the federal government has to borrow more money from U.S. and foreign investors. But as would-be lenders to the U.S. see America as increasingly insolvent, investors will demand higher interest rates to lend us that money. Higher rates of government borrowing lead to higher rates for home mortgages, credit cards, student loans, car loans, and every other form of borrowing. And, as we’ve seen, these higher interest rates lead to higher price inflation, whether or not the Bureau of Labor Statistics recognizes it as such.