Monetary confusion

Interest rates could easily have increased by .50% last time.

I don't really understand this comment:

ECONOMISTS began to fret yesterday that interest rates will rise even higher than 5.25 per cent, after the Bank of England said it had considered shocking consumers with a 50 basis point hike in interest rates this month.

Surely economists should want the "correct" interest rate, and that may not necessarily be a low one. It rather looks as if those "fretting" economists haven't thought things through properly. Of course, in a sane world interest rates wouldn't be imposed by a politically appointed committee: they would be set by the market.