We've got a whole bunch of people under the delusion that collecting and redistributing money is "productive work". And we can indeed go bankrupt doing enough of it because nothing productive is actually getting done.
And if the reference is meant to cover finance as well as government, it is false and shows a complete misunderstanding of the nature of economic action, and what actually adds value and causes economic growth. Ordering resources to more productive away from less productive use is accomplished precisely by finance; it is its function and the reason is adds more value than any other single sector of the economy.