darkSpyro

I noticed that when I die and I get brought back to Zoe, the bad guys I killed before I died still have gems when I kill them again but any light gems I collected I still have. Does this mean I have unlimited gems and I can keep dying and can get gems over and over? Or do I lose all the money I had before I died?

Nope, you have unlimited gems as you use them to spend at moneybag's shop.
You don't lose money at all, Gems aren't counted like Light gems and are just currency rather than collectable items for each world like the previous games.

This is one of things I don't like about AHT. One of funniest (and most annoying) things in previous games was this search for lost gems. And you never was sure (unless you had 1 gem left) if you are looking for single gem, for single gem cluster, or maybe you skipped gems in four different places. I have no idea why, but I always loved that searching

Gems are just currency in this game, not collectibles. <.>

yup so that means I can keep dying and keep killing the same bad guy and will have unlimited coins to spend at the shop? It's kinda like a cheat if you want lots of items, right?

Yes, you can do so, but mostly it isn't profitable. It takes a bit of time to kill yourself, and you're not progressing meanwhile. Unless you have maxed out game. But I have maxed everything in game (charges for all elements, lock picks, I even have gem doubler on my save), so it lost all of it's meaning. I can't progress anymore. Sad, but true
Back to the topic, I wouldn't consider it cheating. No glitches, no bugs, just clever way to use game mechanics.

Also, enemies tend to give out fewer gems when they respawn, I find. <.<