I can’t remember when I met Mike Schussler; it was probably somewhere in the early 1990s. It was a time of change and turmoil for SA. Politically and economically, change was the only constant and as young economists, we found our profession was no exception.

Before this time of monumental transformation, economists were mostly ivory-tower men. My tower, however, was of a somewhat darker hue. I worked in the black SA Reserve Bank building, my job being to analyse the fiscal accounts...