Heh.
"Tom, you're the one around here who knows exactly how economies and governments should be organized. I’ve never made any claims I know."
I think I'll just let that one stand on its own. :)
For the record, out of a list of 120 famous dictators or totalitarian leaders, I found two with any sort of engineering background: Leonid Brezhnev of the U.S.S.R., and Hu Jintao of China. I have my own theories on this, but a functional engineer's appreciation of reality's overriding authority is probably part of it.