Economy of the Ghetto

The economy of the Ghetto is a system of hustling and what is called a "roast". Getting paid for manual labour,making sufficient money so that they can meet their nutritional needs for one day and then they will hustle tommorrow again for food for that day. 

There is nothing to save. It's not even suffice for creating balance meals for a family. Children have to get school fee and the money pinched in order to save for bills,hire purchase or the hundred dollars a day partner. 

A lot of people don't understand how the partner helps out the poor man. He can pool his money with his neighbors and save then he collect a lumpsum. This lumpsum can go towards extending his house or paying for the tertiary education of his child. 

 There is no guarantees, just faith and hope that something will turn up the next day that will allow one to subsist. It is a game of survival. Life is not a luxury but many would rather be alive than dead because as long as they are alive then there is a hope. It does not matter what is going on in a Ghetto person's life, it is all about being here, as long as one has life, one has a chance of changing his circumstances. 

The lure of illicit activities in the Ghetto is real. It offers an opportunity to change the economical circumstances. The money is fast and it is often in large amounts. Poor people believe that money will make their lives a bliss. Therefore they believe that the pursuit of money is the ultimately goal. They will find out in time that money does not solve their problems. 

When a Ghetto person is poor, no one sees him. When he shows sign of making money, he incurs the attention of his community who will invariably expect him to share his spoils with them. If he refuses then he is seen as being traitorous to the identity of the Ghetto and seen as someone who "switched". 

Bad Men within the community will begin to use badness and threats to solicit money from the newly rich Ghetto person. The individual understanding the intricacies of the Ghetto and will comply if he wants to spare the lives of him and his family. 

If he decides to resist the demands of extortionist then he must leave his natal community. He understands that his life is in jeopardy. He can leave or form his own army to protect himself. Hence the connection between illicit money and crime. Where there's an illegal operation accruing profits, men offering bodyguard services and "strong arms" will no doubt gravitate to that person because a "food haffi eat".  Illicit money fuels crime. 

How illegal activities shape the Jamaican Society?

Some people think scamming is a bad thing. People in the Jamaican ghetto will tell you that scamming has done more good than harm to their lives.

They will say that they would rather our young men scam some unsuspecting stranger than stick up them with guns and take away the little that they have. 

The promotion, endorsement or even embracing of scamming has nothing to do with morality, but everything to do with survival. 

The endorsement, glorification and toleration of illicit activities on the Ghetto has nothing to do with morality. It has everything to do with survival. 

How can you question a man about his values when the notion is not a staple. He cannot eat values. But if he finds a way wherein he can feed his family then he will not be moved by scruples to overlook that prospect. 

Some people might argue that nothing that was begotten out of wrongdoing will ever prosper. Ghetto people, black people will countermand by insisting that superpower economies were built on the blood and sweat of black people yet we have not seen destiny returning life to its Karmic balance by punishing them for enslavement. 

They believe from experience that only good people get hurt,stepped on and abuse. Police don't abuse people with money. Look at politicians, they have been exploiting the coffers of poor people's money for years and yet no one had ever held them accountable. I hear Mutabaruka call it scamming. 

Politicians a scam poor people, police a scam people, bank tellers a scam people. Mutabaruka emphasize that all the educated people in Jamaica turn scammer. With no jobs, they use their creative energies to make money to subsist themselves. 

What really pisses poor people off is when the people who tell them not to do this or that would never offer a helping hand. A beggar is socially spurned, a gun man venerated and feared. 

The Big Idea Funding Network was created to give young people with brilliant ideas and opportunity to realize their dreams by having people pooling money together. I'd prefer if a thousand  Jamaicans invested a thousand dollars on a project worth a million dollars than one Jamaican fretting about his 20,000 dollars that he invested. 

I was recently selling a property, a big acreage and someone asked me why didn't I get some of my "moneyed friends" to buy the property as an investment. I told him two things that made him laugh and shook his head. 1. People don't invest money with people who look poorer than them because they believe you will Nyam them out. Two people prefer to invest in an institution than a person. 

I  am not an advocate of earning money through illicit means but I am not a novice to the idea that the worlds wealthiest earn money by spilling blood. Most rich people's wealth is dabbled somewhere in a past mired in exploitation or harm of another person. It is a cut throat world.