I agree with that statement and do not find it contradictory to the money/power relationship.
The power that the producers gain through their money is a by-product of their production, not the goal of it.
I'm not quite following you here. You say that 'power is gained through money'. Could this be rephrased as 'power is gained using money'? If so, this would be an indication of capitalism, reinvesting and using the accumulated wealth to continue growing.
If power(to reinvest and grow)is not a goal wouldn't the producers just do enough to subsist?
The looters such as Kinnan are trying to grab the money thinking that they will grab the value with it. But they cannot grab that value because they do not trade in values.
What indication is there that the looters are aware of value? They are aware of money and power and they need to steal it from someone who has it, be it a producer or one of their own, it doesn't matter to them.
.The point is that they are not aware of the value. They think that the piece of paper holds the value not the production that piece of paper represents.
As for the power question, I think we are defining terms differently. I was reading the looter's grabs for power as power over others. The producers are not interested in power over others but rather a fair trade with others.
Rand pictures producers as internally motivated. Produce, and produce well, is just what they do; it's who they are. I know a lot of people like this. Many of the producer characters continue to produce long after the government starts taking from them the external rewards of doing so. Rand/Galt have the difficult task of telling producers not to do the only thing they care about, in order in the long run to restore the kind of system that values them for doing so.