While foreign nations have used dollars as their reserve currency, that could change if the U.S. does not adopt more sensible spending habits, he said.

He also said that while the US dollar's role as the world's number one reserve currency was "safe today" he thought that "everyone has to do things to make sure safety occurs. When we ride a bus or a car or plane, we put on a seatbelt".

Trashing the international order would gut the dollar as a reserve currency, rattle the stock market and return us to the instability of the 1930s.

“The dollar is finished as the world’s reserve currency,” Bove said.

“The dollar is finished as the world’s reserve currency,” Mr. Bove said matter-of-factly, perched in an armchair outside his home office just north of Tampa, from which he predicted that China will overtake the U.S. economy.