Finances: How inflation affects your retirement dollar: At 13 percent annual inflation, an annual living expense of $24 000 in 1979 dollars will soar to $323 000 in 20 years

Most engineers are as concerned and baffled about continuing inflation as economists are. There are many plausible explanations for inflation but still no successful remedies. Working engineers — particularly young engineers — tend to accept inflation with the knowledge that their earned incomes will reflect the depreciation of the dollar. In other words, their incomes will be indexed to the inflation rate. Their tendency is to put off saving and to accelerate spending, since an unspent dollar won't be as valuable in the future.