Commentary The headline inflation rate, or consumer price index, rose +5.3 percent over the past 12 months in August as the annualized rate of change in the index appears to be peaking. Investors and consumers are convinced inflation will continue to rise even higher, much like it did in the 1970s. Few realize the dollar is slowly gaining strength and is going to slow the rate of inflation, perhaps significantly, as it did during the Great Financial Crisis. Part of the reason investors believe inflation will head higher is due to the rapid ascent of the producer price index that measures the average change over time in the selling price received by domestic producers for their output. The producer price index is extremely sensitive to commodity prices, which feed into the input costs producers pay. The broad belief is that higher producer prices will lead to higher consumer prices. Since …