During the 2020–2022 drought, farmers and cities pumped so much groundwater from the Sacramento Valley that parts of its aquifers sank by up to 30 centimetres per year. Aquifers are layers of rock and sediment that hold water in tiny pore spaces. Normally, they compress when pumped and rebound when refilled, but when water is removed too fast the sediment structure deforms and the pore space permanently collapses. Satellite data now show that the damage has not reversed even after wetter years from 2023 to 2025. Less storage means less water for the future and a greater flood risk, since the ground can absorb less rain.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.