The Senior Economist, who nicknamed himself “Dr. Doom, after correctly predicting the 2008 financial crisis, has mocked resettled New Yorkers for “foolishly” moving to sunbelt states during the pandemic.
Nouriel Roubini, a New York University economics professor and CEO of consulting firm Roubini Macro Associates, believes those who fled the Big Apple to Florida or Texas would have been wiser to relocate to the Midwest instead.
“A lot of real estate is going to be stranded because of global climate change,” Roubini told Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast. “People have foolishly moved from New York to Miami and from San Francisco to Austin, but Florida is being flooded and Texas is getting too hot to survive.”
The latest data on migration trends over the last few years shows that tens of thousands of Americans have relocated from high-tax states like New York, California and Illinois to more affordable places like Florida, Texas, Carolinas and Georgia.
But Roubini believes they made a mistake, telling Odd Lots: “There are literally maps showing that within the next 20 years half of the US will either be under water on the coasts or be too hot, or droughts or forest fires to live in it.”
“So there will have to be massive migration from the South and from the coasts to the only part of the US that will survive climate change. [which] the Midwest is essentially Canada,” he said.
“So there will be trillions of dollars in real estate assets that will be damaged by what is essentially global climate change.”
Roubini urged investors to invest in real estate, as well as short-dated government bonds, inflation-linked bonds and gold. He said these are “assets that protect you against inflation, political and geopolitical risks and environmental damage”.
Roubini said real estate is “a good hedge against inflation as long as monetary policy is not very restrictive.”
He predicted that the Federal Reserve, which has been aggressively raising interest rates to cool scorching inflation, would eventually “dodge” hikes.
“I think real estate will do better than stocks in the short term,” Roubini predicted.
He urged investors to consider climate change.
“You have to find the investment types in the right parts of the United States,” Roubini said.
His comments were transcribed by Fortune.
