[obstinate]

"The price of tap water has risen faster than gold or real estate . . ." What an odd pair of benchmarks. We don't expect the prices of either of those items to rise particularly fast. What was the actual rate of increase in the price of tap water? According to the Case-Schiller index, national housing prices have roughly doubled in the last twenty years (I don't know if the index accounts for inflation). That doesn't seem like an extraordinary rate of increase for the price of tap water.

[wyattpeak]

Prima facie we don't expect them to rise fast, but they are probably the two best-known things which have risen reasonably fast (at least in the popular consciousness) in the past twenty-odd years.