I’m only focusing on the fact that a nation that prints its own money can end up printing too much and devaluing it. And when a country shows its printing presses are controlled by people who have no clue what they’re doing, people tend to stop buying their bonds.

I don’t really care whether it’s truly borrowing when a country sells bonds and promises to pay the bondholders back with interest. As long as the country feels it has an obligation to pay those bondholders, it has a temptation to pay them with devalued currency. Most countries don’t do that because they expect few people will buy bonds the next time the government wants to sell some.