NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A little reminder from our London cousins: Rates can rise, too.

Call it a shot across the bow. Thursday, the Bank of England became the second central bank (the first was Australia) to hike its benchmark target rate this week. In a global economy that looks to clearly be on the path to recovery, other central banks may follow. New Zealand and Canada are prime candidates. And then, despite all its protests to the contrary, maybe that other former British colony's bank -- the Federal Reserve.

Justin Lahart, senior writer at CNN/Money, talks about the Bank of England's interest rate increase and the Fed's next move. Play video (Real or Windows Media)

In the statement it released following its decision to boost its repo rate by a quarter point to 3.75 percent, the Bank of England noted that "credit growth remains strong" and neither "household spending nor the housing market have slowed by as much" as it thought they would. Translation: U.K. household debt levels have got dangerously high and housing prices are surging.

The scary thing is that some people believe that the same things apply to the United States. U.S. consumer debt as a percentage of income, and household debt as a percentage of household assets have never been as high now. And housing prices are, to say the very least, robust.

Yet there are important differences between the U.S. situation and the British one, points out Lehman Brothers chief economist John Llewellyn. To start with, if there is a housing bubble in the world, it is in the United Kingdom.

More important, the U.K. jobs picture is much friendlier than the U.S. one. Britain's unemployment rate stands at 5 percent -- as low as it's been in decades. This means that the Bank of England can more freely work to clear up the excesses it sees in consumer credit and housing prices.

"The economy can withstand the impact of higher rates better if you have strong employment," said Llewellyn.

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Llewellyn reckons that unemployment in the United States would have to be at least a full percentage point lower than the current 6.1 percent for all of the country's spare capacity to be mopped up and for wage inflation to kick in again. The U.S. jobs picture is improving -- just look at Thursday's initial claims report -- but it's going to be a long time before the unemployment rate dips down by that much.