Hello Avery. I like how you referenced the Bible in relation to Francisco’s Money Speech. However, I do not believe he was trying to take this concept out of context, but rather explain it in a way that provides a different perspective on how people use money that can be seen as evil. Money itself is not evil since it is just a value, but the people who use it can be turned to evil due to societal norms. We are so focused on getting money “to be happy,” but like the speech says, money does not buy happiness and will not provide us with a purpose if we do not know what we want in life. We think we have everything we need if we could just be rich, but money doesn’t supply us with other things in life such as a purpose and relationships. The quote you explained was a little out of context, but still relates with how the world views money.

Money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence (Rand, A. p. 1).

The beginning of the quote says that those who wish to destroy men, aim for the money because that is what most people value in life. Not all people, however, believe that money is everything, and people do value money because they earned it from hard work. Those who steal from people, do not earn that money, but are known as the “destroyers” mentioned earlier. This is how money brings out the worst in people because we must fight to maintain our money, while others can easily just take it from us with no effort. I agree that Christian’s find other things in life more valuable than money, but in Francisco’s speech, he was trying to make a specific point that money is not the root of all evil.

I agree with what you say about the quote at the beginning of “The Money Confusion.”

…money is abundant where there are goods to be exchanged, and scare where there’s little of market worth (Tamny, J. p. 33).

Money is simply just an agreement about value and when there are goods of value to be exchanged, there is more money on hand to exchange because it is value for value. Your explanation of the war that Tamny discussed at the beginning of the chapter puts it in terms that are easily understandable. There were not many supplies left, and therefore there was not as much money to trade for other resources. Government is there in times of need to get the economy functioning again when it drops during times of trouble. I wish you would have mentioned some of the other points that he had mentioned in this chapter, but the other thing that you did mention was that there are certain factors that make money valuable. You said that money was valuable because it was backed by gold, but I believe that it is still held to some level of the same standard because we still all view money as the same value, at least here in the United States. Though it isn’t as strong as it used to be, money still has important value in the economy that we use to facilitate everyday exchanges amongst each other.