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Comment by kutakbash | Hacker News Reader

The problem with this comparison is that choice of size of the wealthiest share of population (top 110, top 400, top one family, top 20%) greatly influences the outcome of comparison. Why won't we all just refer to good old Gini coefficient and call it a day.

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According to the Gini, Russia has more income equality:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

I can't imagine it being true though given this story, my experiences traveling across Siberia, and those of my roommate who is from Russia (he's been in the US for six years). You pretty much have to be a one percenter to get potable tap water (every restaurant charges for water because it's always bottled, never tap).

Most people here don't buy bottled water because they don't have a car and/or don't care about water quality and/or don't think bottled water is superior. People use filters to filter tap water or just boil it.

Serving tap water in restaurants doesn't sound right to me. First of all, pipes might be rusty.

So… bottled water is superior? I thought it's essentially filtered tap water…

It all depends on the quality of tap water - there are locations where tap water is pretty much the same as bottled water, and there are locations where tap water isn't considered drinkable unless boiled beforehand.

Bottled water quality is predictable, your next restaurant's plumbing condition is not.

I don't like branded bottled water but at least you know what you get.

You are not supposed to drink water off the tap (well, actually you can, if you don't value your kidneys in the long run), you are supposed to filter it through $40 device or boil it, then you can drink it. That's something that everyone does, I don't see this problem, like, at all. I dunno why restaurants charge for water, maybe because they can.

> The problem with this comparison is that choice of size of the wealthiest share of population (top 110, top 400)

I found it fitting because it's pretty close to the same percentage of total population in either case (1 in a million)

> Why won't we all just refer to good old Gini coefficient and call it a day.

Although you can use Gini for wealth, the "usual" Gini coefficient is income.

Well, that's correct; Nevertheless, I think people should have been reminded that Gini coefficient exists someplace ITT.

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