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Brutha Hustle, the Carlton Sheets of the ghetto, introduces Hustle-Nomics 2006, a plan that helps financially challenged individuals supplement their current income within an inflated economy.

Brutha Hustle: โ€œDuring the 1980s, a president advocated a theory allowing businesses and wealthy folk to flourish, since their profits will ultimately trickle down to poor folk and the rest of the economy. Twenty-five years later, โ€˜trickle-down economic theory,โ€™ once called โ€˜voodoo economics,โ€™ has come full circle. Every-day high prices and every-week low wages force financially challenged individuals to face an unsettling reality: As slaves to a fixed, minimum wage, we poor folk bake the bread, while โ€˜trickle-down theoryโ€™ benefactors give us the crust.

โ€œEnter the Hustle-Nomics 2006 plan. The basic supplementary wage start-up plan consists of the following: 30-50 bottles of Juicy-Juice; 1 Styrofoam ice container; 1 bag of ice; 1 city map highlighting street corners amenable to enterprising individuals (aka street hustlers).

โ€œThe start-up cost is minimal, operating hours and work environments are flexible, and profit is immediate.

โ€œThe Hustle-Nomics 2006 Advanced Plan allows financially challenged entrepreneurs access to Juicy-Juice distribution sources and product expansion items like the pre-paid disposable cell phones, second-hand designer jewelry, department-store gift cards, plus mix-tape CDs, DVDs, audio and VHS cassettes.

โ€œI also offer Hustle-Nomics training classes at Clubb Chicken Wing, just before the Saturday Night Bingo and Livinโ€™ for the Weekend After Party.

โ€œDonโ€™t drown in despair. Keep your head above water with the Hustle-Nomics 2006 plan. Thank you!โ€

TVproducer Ken Stiggers is also the host of The Lyric Lounge, Thursdays at Santiagoโ€™s.

Previous Comments

This reminds me when kids at my elementary school would mix Kool-Aid and sugar together in little Ziploc bags and sell them for a quarter. Nothin’ like hustlin’ on the playground!


You the bomb, Ken! I need to start doubling up on car notes fo’ the ecomomy get worse and I have to engage in hustle-nomics while walking. Even the so-called non-poor are closer to poverty than most would admit or readily comtemplate.


Even the so-called non-poor are closer to poverty than most would admit or readily comtemplate. Ain’t that the truth? I believe there’s more of a juggling act going on with debt than actually having the money to purchase all that stuff. Remember the Lending Tree commercial?

MFP Solutions Lab logo

The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippiโ€™s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.