“DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE,” Ronald Reagan is reported to have told over-zealous legislators and regulators. Many on Wall Street are wishing that Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke would follow that advice and leave interest right where they are, at 5 percent, after 16 consecutive increases, rather than raise them later this month.

Bernanke’s predecessor, Alan Greenspan, didn’t have to exercise his legendary ability to peer into the future to know that interest rates had to rise about the 1 percent level to which he had brought them. Bernanke’s job is harder: he has to decide when enough is enough, when rates have reached that “neutral” level that will keep inflation bottled up without tipping the economy into recession. Until recently, the word among money men was that “the 5 percent solution” would do the trick. Now, they are not so sure.