It’s one of those persistent memes: “The Wizard of Oz is actually a political allegory about monetary reform and the gold standard.” I’ve often heard it without trusting it, but never really knew a whole lot about who first said it, what it meant exactly, or to what extent it was accurate. Steve Cook of Snarkout “comes to the rescue”:http://www.snarkout.org/archives/2003/11/16/, as is his wont, with an informative essay full of stuff you didn’t realize you were curious about until you read it. Good stuff.