Well, fuck.

Technically, it's not over as I type this, but since the 14 authorities that haven't declared their counts would all need to be in the top 15 remain vote-shares, it doesn't look good. Even in the vanishingly unlikely chance that we do edge the referendum, the country is wrecked, and the world economy looks set to follow; realistically, the singularity has arrived, just not the one we were supposed to be expecting.

I shall continue to hope for the best, but my fears have become much stronger.

A possibly useful benchmark

Today's drop in the value of the pound (against the USD, specifically) was, as many people have noted, the largest ever recorded. That's true, but doesn't give a real sense of how unprecedented it is: today's drop - from day's end to day's end - was bigger than the second and third largest drops put together. If you count from yesterday's peak at the start of counting to today's nadir (ie 24-hr high to low), the Leave drop is larger than the second, third, and fourth largest currency crashes in UK history put together.

(For reference, drops two to four are the "Winter of Discontent" in 1978, the UK's ignominious exit from the ERM in 1992, and the 2008 financial crisis, in that order.)

Except that according to Krugman none of that is even remotely true. Which makes me wonder where the BBC (and others reporting the same) got their figures from, given how far off they look to be. (The BBC gives the ERM crash as 4.3%, Krugman says "about a quarter". That's a big difference!)

Correction to the correction: Krugman turns out to be comparing yesterday's single-day change with the longer-term effects of other catastrophes. The original stands. Thanks to ewx for pointing this out.