Something that is a complete mystery to most academics and many other educated smart people who have never risked a dollar, a yaun or a ruble in an enterprise that depended on successful economic management to deliver profits, the fuel of the market.

Now my admittedly shallow and superficial observations of Dr Gaurav Sharma, all of very recent exposure via a media who might be expected to diminish evidence of intellectual excellence while they promote the denigratory notions of mental illness of someone who having endured eighteen months of systemic bullying because the good Dr had notions of an ability to make personal decisions at odds with the groupthink being reinforced by what he experienced as Bullying. Behaviour that can have as many definitions as any number of people attempting such a definition.

Now the pillars and much of the rubble lying around the worksite that created those pillars of academia who have become the go to opinion on offer to buttress the arguments and ideology based theories of the ruling class have absolutely zero understanding of economic reality that the politicians of yesteryear often had accumulated in business, farming and other activities that required some basic inputs to have remained solvent prior to embarking on a journey in politics.

Now a student union Treasurer might have accumulated such rudimentary basics , such as for instance avoiding a bank balance in arrears that will impact by declining to honour a cheque, now historical, or a credit card in arrears often revealed by the red letters “Declined please consult your bank”. However such basic facts will be rapidly placed in the ignore column when Ideological dictates an over rule or at least initiate a downgrading of concern for an ideology driven ex student union treasurer.

Academics so often rise to a pinnacle without any exposure to such basic economic facts of life, oh they might spend some time at the till of a McDonalds or KFC or even wrapping orders at a fish and chippy, however any understanding of profit and loss, bank advances needing limiting to stay within credit limits, cash flows, security over assets subject to surrender should the economic model fail, will never become apparent.

So back to the good Dr, commenters on blogs and some pseudo journalists are questioning an apparent naivety for a smart person to hitch their wagon to a historically failed and still failing system such as the raison d’etre for the current government? quite simply it is the ideological blinkers (similar to the steward permitted sight obstructions placed on horses in racing conditions to ensure no distraction), that fulfills stage one of the Churchillian observation on believing in socialism, so often ignored particularly in academia.

Dr Gaurav Sharma from Wikipedia:

Sharma was born in India, and his family moved to New Zealand when he was 12 years old. Sharma went to Auckland Grammar School where he was the Proxime Accessit (runner-up Dux) in his final year of high school. In 2005, The New Zealand Herald named him as one of the top six students in the country as per Sir John Graham‘s NZ Education and Scholarship Trust.

Medical career

Volunteering to work as a caregiver in a rest home when he was in high school inspired Sharma to pursue a career in medicine. Sharma qualified as a medical doctor from University of Auckland‘s School of Medicine in 2011 where he was also involved with the New Zealand Medical Students’ Association. Sharma undertook an internship with the World Health Organisation in 2012, working within the Non-Communicable Diseases unit.

When he returned from Geneva, Sharma practiced medicine in different hospitals across Auckland until 2015.. Sharma is registered with the MCNZ under a general scope requiring he practice under supervision in the GPEP training program, meaning he is a GP in training but is not yet qualified.

Fulbright and MBA

In 2015, Sharma received the Fulbright Scholarship to complete a MBA at George Washington University in Washington DC, with a specific focus on business, politics and public health. During this time, Sharma was involved on campus in Hillary Clinton‘s campaign for the United States Presidency in 2016. He was also a Senator on the George Washington University’s Student Senate during his time there as a student.

Very little evidence there of any reason for a departure from a belief in the benefits of Socialism although some of the potentially stressful activity encountered since the euphoria of winning the seat of Hamilton West nearly two years ago might have created some doubts? Tbf though Dr Sharma is really only just arrived in the age timeframe Churchill referred to as being in the brainless group.
That said I am very suspicious of people who have accumulated wealth, particularly in participating in the promotion of Socialism, preaching their superiority while attempting to disabuse those who have accumulated, often minimal in amounts compared to the preacher, of their wealth to fund poorly targeted and delivered welfare that has an unfortunate ending of increasing the number in that target group.

Dr Gaurav Sharma is but one more well educated person clinging to Socialist ideology because he has never really been made aware of the damaging aspects such ideology has delivered everywhere tried that has never run out of other peoples money to fund it, to bring an unfortunate experiment to an all too often disastrous, albeit merciful end.