I nailed most of my economic predictions for 2008.

Of course, I cheated.

I wrote two columns last January – the first with 10 reasons from a pessimist’s perspective why 2008 would become the Year to Forget; the second with 10 reasons why 2008 looked like a year of economic opportunity.

Guess which one I nailed?

Unfortunately, yes: The Bad List. Let’s review:

1. Housing prices. “We haven’t seen the worst in the housing market,” I wrote 12 months ago. I thought it would get bad – at least through October. It got bad through October, then got worse.

For the year, nationally, homes prices fell 18 percent, according to the S&P/Case Schiller Index of 20 major cities. The Seattle housing market dropped 10 percent – the first time it dropped by double digits.

The National Association of Realtors described 2008 as the biggest housing collapse since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

2. Oil prices. Last January, oil hit $100 a barrel. I wrote it could peak between $120 and $150 a barrel in 2008 and drive gas prices up to $4.50 a gallon.

Well, it peaked at near $150 a barrel with gas at $4.10 on average nationally in July.

Since then, however, as the economy has worsened the price of oil and gas has nose dived like never before – down to less than $50 a barrel and $1.50 a gallon at the pump.

3. Dollar. Here’s what I wrote, “The 13 countries that do business in euros likely will see their currency hit a lifetime high this year against our unalmighty dollar.”

Turns out that prediction was both true and false. In April and July, the euro peaked in value against the dollar. Since then, however, the dollar has made a comeback as the recession spread to economies around the world.

Jack Crooks, writing for FX University Daily, called our dollar “the biggest surprise currency of 2008.” In a good way.

4. Port of Tacoma. When Port of Tacoma prognosticators issued their predictions for 2008, I scoffed. They projected modest growth of 4.6 percent in container traffic. I doubted it.

Sure enough, container traffic will drop nearly 4 percent in 2008 when the final numbers get tallied. American consumers put the brakes on spending, so the importers put the brakes on what they had shipped in.

5. Personal income. I missed this one.

I thought personal income in Pierce County would fall below the historic growth rate. But because the full effects of the national recession lagged hitting Pierce County until later in the year, per capita personal income grew at a healthy 6.5 percent, according to the Pierce County Economic Index.

6. Election year uncertainty. The economy abhors uncertainty. So I wrote, “What else creates uncertainty” more than “this question: Who will become the next leader of the free world?”

Since the precipitous pre-election plunge of the stock market in October and the corresponding drop in consumer spending, we have seen a modicum of hope and a leveling out of the economic turmoil – with a huge helping deal of hope piled on the shoulders of President-elect Barack Obama.

7. End of a Microsoft era. With the 2007 announcement that Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, would end his day-to-day involvement in summer 2008, I forecast the company being worse off without him.

The stock came into the year at nearly $36 a share and ended it under $20. We certainly can’t blame all that on Gates leaving, when the Dow Jones stocks overall dropped 35 percent.

But losing the corporate compass during an economic whirlwind couldn’t have helped Microsoft.

8. Slowing construction. I jumped on board with the pre-2008 prediction by Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley that housing starts would fall by 40 percent to levels unseen “in the history of modern data since 1959.”

Sorry to say, “I told you so.”

In its recap of 2008, Builder’s Magazine lamented its No. 1 story: The drop in new housing starts nationally: “Starts for November came in at an annualized rate of only 625,000. You have to go all the way back to WWII for a level of start that low.”

9. Bad boomers. Because the baby boomers generally have lived spend-happy lives and saved little for their futures, I predicted 2008 would start to show the ramifications in greater strains on Medicare and Social Security.

As 70 million boomers leave the work force between 2005 and 2028, the generations following will resupply the work force with roughly 40 million. That means boomers will take out more money than the next generations can pay in, which puts a strain on government social programs.

I still believe it will happen. But the trend will take several more years to show up and has gotten overshadowed by the greater immediate economic pain.

10. Retail sales. Here’s what I asked 12 months ago, “If the dollar isn’t worth as much, if imported goods cost more, if home values decline so we can’t refinance to pull spending money out of our home’s equity, if our salaries haven’t grown much, if baby boomers haven’t stockpiled much savings, how can anyone expect we’ll have money to burn in 2008?”

I guess that was a rhetorical question. But few believed me then. Even the two University of Puget Sound economists who track the Pierce County Economic Index thought our spending would rise 4.4 percent. It fell by 4.3 percent – better than an 8 percent swing.

Sometimes I hate being right – even when I cheat.

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com