While the country's monetary base – currency in circulation plus bank reserves – exploded to $4.08 trillion as of May 15, thanks to the Federal Reserve's massive easing program, $2.6 trillion of the total sits in excess bank reserves.

And that's a problem, says Robert Auerbach, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas.

"The $2.6 trillion is the monetary time bomb that they [the Fed] cannot burst into the economy rapidly without causing inflation and severe financial problems," he writes on The Huffington Post.

"If the Yellen Fed raises interest rates, they must pay the banks more money to hold on to their $2.6 trillion."

Fed Chair Janet Yellen said last month that the Fed will likely start raising interest rates later this year. The Fed has kept its federal funds rate target at a record low of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.

"The correct policy for the Fed is to slowly reduce interest paid to banks on their excess reserves and carefully raise the federal funds rate" if economic growth matches the IMF estimate of 2.5 percent this year, Auerbach says.

Meanwhile, though many investors are obsessed with the Fed's efforts to boost the economy, perhaps they're looking in the wrong direction.

"There seems to be a perception that central bankers are gods (or at the very least minor deities in some twisted economic pantheon)," James Montier, a portfolio manager at money management firm GMO, writes in a commentary.

"Coupled with this deification of central bankers is a faith that interest rates are a panacea. Whatever the problem, interest rates can solve it. Inflation too high, simply raise interest rates. Economy too weak, then lower interest rates."

You might be getting the idea that Montier holds some doubts. Indeed, he does. "This obsession with interest rates as a cure-all rests on some dubious views about the way the world works," he writes. "It would appear that monetary policy isn’t the most effective tool for managing the economy."

The government should turn to fiscal policy instead, Montier argues.

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