If you had told an economics practitioner 30 years ago that the Federal Reserve would hold the U.S. benchmark rate close to zero for six years, he would have said, nonsense. How could a highly developed $17.5 trillion economy function with such low interest rates for so long without generating huge imbalances or raging inflation?

Welcome to our world. What seemed implausible has become reality. And there is no real urgency to start raising rates.

First, let me say that I am surprised to be writing the previous sentence. Two years ago, when the Fed introduced a 6.5 percent unemployment threshold for even considering an increase in the funds rate, I was aghast. The Fed's projections at the time for full employment (5-6 percent) and the long-run neutral funds rate (4 percent) implied that policy makers were willing to wait until the very last minute to normalize rates, even if it meant risking higher inflation.

Now the unemployment rate is 5.8 percent, and many analysts expect the Fed to replace its pledge to hold the funds rate near zero for "a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends" with something equally vague. That program ended in October, so at minimum the Fed will have to change the verb tense.

What about the phrase itself? If "considerable time" had any meaning, the Fed has since neutered it with the addition of a qualifier: Depending on the progress toward its employment and inflation objectives, the Fed could raise rates sooner or later than anticipated.

Got it. Thanks. So how does the Fed communicate that the time for raising rates is getting closer without getting too specific? Fed chairman Janet Yellen made that mistake once when she let it slip, at her first press conference in March, that the catchphrase "probably means something on the order of around six months." Yellen subsequently backed away from such a scandalous degree of specificity.

One reason not to change the forward guidance may be the lack of an adequate substitute. New York Fed President Bill Dudley teed up "patient," as in the Fed can be patient about raising rates. You'll have to consult an etymologist to quantify the difference between the two phrases.

A more important cautionary signal is coming from the markets. While recent economic data—everything from employment to consumer spending to sentiment surveys to manufacturing output—have been strong, market-based indicators are decidedly downbeat.

Long-term Treasury yields have been tumbling, with the 10-year note falling from 3 percent at the start of the year to just above 2 percent today. The U.S. dollar is soaring. Industrial commodity prices, led by crude oil, are heading south. These are not typical signs of an overly easy monetary policy.

The Fed, for its part, is much more focused on labor-market slack. With the breach of the 6.5 percent unemployment threshold earlier this year, policymakers decided that rate was no longer an accurate reflection of the available supply of labor. Instead, Yellen has been tracking an array of indicators, including a measure of underemployment, the labor force participation rate, the rate at which workers are leaving jobs, and wages, all of which suggest ample slack.

Add to that the Fed's latest concern: too little inflation. Inflation has been running below the Fed's 2 percent target for 2.5 years. The 45 percent plunge in oil prices since June will depress headline inflation numbers in coming months at a time when market-based measures of inflation expectations are already falling.

To the list of reasons, I'd offer one more: Stanley Fischer. Fischer joined the Fed as vice chairman in May, and I've been waiting to see can sway his colleagues with his atypical —for a central banker, at least—views on forward guidance. At a September 2013 conference in Hong Kong, Fischer said the Fed can't spell out what it is going to do "because it doesn't know."

Bingo. Just look at the history of Fed forecasts if you doubt it. What's more, too much forward guidance deprives policymakers of flexibility, he explained: an outcome that would please fans of rules-based monetary policy but not the current Fed.

The Fed releases committee members' expectations for the funds rate four times a year. At the September meeting, the so-called "dot plot" revealed a median expectation for the year-end 2015 funds rate of 1.375 percent. That would suggest lift-off by mid-year, given the Fed's predilection for moving in baby steps.

The federal funds futures market reflects expectations as well. Currently the implied probability of an increase in the fed funds rate at the June meeting is 25 percent, according to CME Group FedWatch. Clearly the market forecast is at odds with the Fed.

The minutes of policy meetings reveal an inordinate amount of attention devoted to what the Fed will say and how it will say it.

Economists and reporters duly follow suit. As we wait to see if the Fed will replace one meaningless phrase with another at the conclusion of its meeting on Wednesday, I find myself yearning for the days when the Fed did what it thought it needed to do and let the markets adjust accordingly.

Caroline Baum is a contributor to e21. You can follow her on Twitter here.