[smeeth]

You appear to be arguing that if you spend income in a productive way then the income was productive income.

That's simply incorrect, it's not how economics works. For example, if I stole $2000 from you and used it to fix houses/invest it would not magically become productive income.

The comment above you is pointing out that excess income a landlord makes because people are willing to pay a premium to lease a scarce or rare good they own doesn't contribute to the rest of the economy in the same way selling a hotdog does. Ergo, unproductive income.

[imtringued]

One of the absurd things about our modern economy (it's actually a recurring problem) is that we keep spending more and more on the same on already existing values. People complain about ever increasing debt and borrowing but most of that money isn't even being spent "into" the economy, it's just used to buy land from rich individuals.

The reason why this is not "productive", is pretty straight forward. It's unproductive because nothing is being produced. We are selling what's already there long before humans existed.