Monetary policy can be a lot like medicine. While it may ease the symptoms that brought you to the doctor in the first place, there are always unintended side effects. Over the course of the past six years the Federal Reserve has injected $3 trillion into the monetary base and held interest rates near zero the entire time. Calling this a dangerous experimental treatment would be an understatement.

An oncologist must be mindful of the effects of chemotherapy — you can kill cancer, but not at the expense of the patient. It’s time to have a discussion about reaching the point in which the side effects of the Fed’s monetary policy “medicine” exceed the perceived benefits.

Interest rates create the basis for the valuations of all assets. It is in no way a fringe, extreme belief to state that ZIRP has been a contributing factor to ballooning equities valuations to all-time highs. The Fed is fully cognizant of this — former Chairman Bernanke was quick to point to growth in the equities market as a sign that the monetary policy medicine was having an effect. Current Chairman Yellen hinted to the danger last month, stating equities prices are “quite high”. It looks a lot like “irrational exuberance” all over again.

Diving a little deeper, the side effects of the artificial conditions are manifesting in corporate debt. It doesn’t take a Harvard Business School graduate to realize that the best time to borrow is when interest rates are low. Sure enough, US corporate debt issuance has reached its highest level even after three consecutive record years of borrowing. Net leverage (debt — cash / EBITDA) for highly rated U.S. nonfinancial companies was 1.88 times at the end of 2014, which is even higher than 1.63 times at the end of 2007 . In short, we’re more highly leveraged than we were before the last financial meltdown — have we learned nothing?

The median acquisition deal this year has been priced at 17x operating profits, a whole 23% higher than the 20 year average . The valuations haven’t been this high since 1999, before the tech bubble burst. Margin debt has exceeded $500 billion, its month-over-month growth rate of 6.5% is a record high (via NYSE); and it has done so at a much faster (~150%) pace than the S&P 500. Stock buybacks reached a record high of $104.3 billion in February — almost twice as much as the prior year. That’s about 2% of the value of all shares traded on US exchanges . When you can achieve a better return buying your own stocks than expanding sales, why not?

Finally, one cannot simply ignore that the Fed has added $3 trillion to the monetary base since 2008 — a roughly 365% increase . Despite recent talk of deflation, investors have been piling into TIPS this year, and the Fed’s own statements indicate they are “reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2% objective over the medium term” . While the Fed has ceased asset purchases, they have ultimately balked at a rate increase or exit strategy to recoup the money that has been printed. This unquestionably jeopardizes their statutory mandate to achieve price stability in the long run.

To close with a different analogy, the easy money climate of the past six years is like bringing a spiked bowl of punch to the party. How ridiculous are we willing to let the party get before taking the punch bowl away? The one thing we all know for certain is the longer and harder you party, the worse the hangover will be.