Pointing out headline inflation’s ascent of recent years has been a fruitless exercise in swaying opinion. The rise of annualized rate of increase in the monthly consumer price index had in September and October climbed above 4% for the first time in more than a decade. But the jump was effectively dismissed as largely irrelevant, the byproduct of the energy bull market of late and therefore unworthy of serious consideration as a sign that inflation threatened. Or so many reasoned.