Genius of Money Post 3

An Interview with Charles Terry

Charles Terry left his teaching job to become the Executive Director of The Door, a youth center. It frustrated him that in such a wealthy place like New York, they were never able to raise enough money. He loved helping these kids with such huge problems, but when given the support and opportunities, they were actually very talented and creative. Terry helped the Door find a new home after their 14-year lease ran out. They were able to accomplish an $18 million facility project having started with zero money and zero assets. This is kind of like an example of the magic around money.

I'm really glad I decided to read Charles Terry's interview. I used to think that most people were just trying to be philanthropist to get a good name for themselves but I feel like Charles Terry really cares about helping others. Even after he finished working with The Door he went on and became The Director of Philanthropy at Rockefeller. Overall, Charles Terry, really cared about helping others, especially the children at The Door and it's great to see how much people love helping others.

Genius of Money Post 2

Chapter 4

This chapter is called "Consuming Identity," where Bloom talks about himself as a consumer. According to this advertising imperative, "It is now the business of advertising to manufacture customers in the comfort of their own homes," it is basically saying we are what we buy. He also talks about advertising and how they used propaganda, which was like a form of "brainwashing." Bloom said that the most recent trend of advertising is storytelling and I agree with that. I believe that storytelling is a great way to grab the consumer's attention and to make them emotional as well. For example, there was a Budweiser ad about not drinking and driving where it told a story about a guy who grew up with and did everything with his dog. One day he leaves his dog at home to go out drinking with some friends and doesn't come home. Turns out he decided to stay over at a friends house to be safe. The dog was sad and waited for one night, but if the guy drove and didn't make it home, the dog would have waited forever for his best friend to come home. I feel like this is what Bloom meant about story telling as advertising because this really hits your emotions.


Everybody deals with transactions daily. In the world of consumerism when it comes to transaction is important to be active and not passive. The issue is to be able to understand who you really are and differrentiate it from what strategyst of the marketing industry wants you to be. Your real image against the image that television and other media give to you.
Consumerism and marketing selling strategy boosted in 1955 after world war II when telivision and big multinationals conquired the market.
However there has been an evolution in marketing strategies to be aware of.
Once, back in the 1920 photographs were used because they were more reliable than animation. Right now the most effective strategy to be consumer friendly and appear genuine is storytelling.
Be aware to what is your real story what is the story told by the marketers 

Genius of Money

Chapter 15 

Chapter 15 is about two differing views of money in America. Alexander Hamilton had a view that all things physical could be monetized such as labor, natural resources, and commodities. Emerson is an American transcendentalist who believed that even though American culture has changed throughout the years, "the quest for a moral understanding of money, its purposes and its effects on the human condition, remains." This chapter also talks about Hoffman's ideas of how money, in America, is such a strong force that it could be a religious force.

This chapter was very confusing and hard to interpret. After rereading it a couple times I am still not exactly sure what it was trying to say. I know that there are suppose to be two different views of money in America but there were so many names and I'm still not sure about the different views. This chapter was very boring and hard to understand, especially compared to chapter 8 that I read.

Genius of Money

Chapter 8 

 In this chapter, Bloom uses Georges de la Tour’s painting “The Payment of Taxes” to frame a discussion about, you guessed it, taxes. Bloom reads far more into paintings than I ever have or likely will – I have taken absolutely no art history courses in my life, and the extent of my interest in art is that I will go to a gallery or museum and have thoughts that follow the lines of: “That looks nice” or “Why is this even a thing?” The point of this is that Bloom posits that de La Tour’s use of shadows and light, or as he calls it, chiaroscuro, are meant to be representative of the action in the scene itself, the payment of taxes. Taxes are a necessary evil for the payer, and a bright spot in the day of the collector. I’m sure that this is what de La Tour’s intention was, simply because it seems reasonable and I lack the knowledge base to refute Bloom’s claims. 

After hearing Professor Hansen say that we were all going to hate this assignment I was pretty unmotivated to do the reading. But when it came time to actually read it, the writing style is pretty easy and it's not hard to understand (especially compared to chapter 15). Although I am not a fan of art and had no interest, what so ever, in the painting I was somewhat interested in hearing about his interpretation. In general, I hate learning about art so much because teachers always make you interpret it and tell you if you are right or wrong. But we wouldn't know what the true interpretation is unless we asked the actual painter. So how do teachers even know that they are right?