Rick Santelli had a meltdown on CNBC today.

During CNBC's "Fast Money Halftime Report," CNBC reporters Rick Santelli and Steve Liesman, as well as the members of CNBC's Halftime Report panel, went at it over Fed policy.

Santelli has long been critical of the Fed policy, especially its post-financial crisis interest rate policy and large-scale asset purchases, or QE. Liesman is CNBC's resident Fed watcher.

Santelli, who Glenn Beck credited with starting the modern-day Tea Party, sees the Fed's current policies as obstructing economic growth and hampering financial markets. In general, Santelli sees it as the market's responsibility, not the Federal Reserve or the government's job, to sort out economic problems.

The segment is based around the question, "Is the Fed behind the curve?" In short, is the Fed keeping interest rates below where inflation might otherwise dictate. Liesman, we should note, said that the Fed's policy is to be behind the curve.

Things really start to get heated at about the 3:00 minute mark in the clip below after Liesman begins talking about how the market could express its concern that the Fed is behind the curve.

To this, Santelli said that of course there wouldn't be any market signs because the Fed's policy has created, "a managed setting," adding that the Fed's policies have, "deprived the markets of hissy fits."

This debate is sparked by the New Yorker profile of Janet Yellen, as well as recent inflation data that indicate things in the economy could be heating up.

The New Yorker profile not only discusses Janet Yellen's training, but also her broader intellectual and political background. This seems to have really made Santelli unhappy. At one point, Santelli asks the panel, "Do you want to hear social policy from the head of the biggest central bank?"

Josh Brown then jumps in and kind of starts trolling Santelli, telling him at about the 5:00 mark, that, "This is one of the biggest non-sequitur discussions I think I've ever heard." Brown goes into a discussion of the demographic factors at play in the U.S. economy: an aging population that is expected to live longer than ever that would never want to buy bonds to save for retirement.

Santelli then talks about millennials living in basements.

Brown fires back: "How does monetary policy, again, address the problem of millennials that don't have skills for the job marketplace? Explain it to me."

Liesman then steps back in and adds that, "If I concede every point Rick makes, he still cannot explain to me how higher interest rates brings about economic outcomes."

Santelli's response: "Because if I'm a bank, why would I lend to some person at a sub risk-reward rate just because the government subsidizes it so they can do it?"

The whole blowup, which is not Santelli's first and certainly not his last, essentially comes down to Santelli disagreeing with the Fed's policy because it doesn't allow markets to determine the direction of the economy.

In the New Yorker profile, Yellen said, "But the financial crisis really diminished the prestige of those who think that financial market are always efficient and work extremely well." At the outset of the Fed's decision to cut rates, and subsequently engage in large scale asset purchases at various points over the last five years, many including Santelli believed that the Fed's policies would lead to rampant inflation, among other adverse outcomes.

This has not been the case.

Josh Brown later tells Santelli that, "Rick, you already decided [the Fed's policy] wasn't gonna work five years ago."

Santelli's response? "AND I WAS RIGHT! END OF CONVERSATION!" Santelli then walks off.

But then Santelli comes back to yell some more.

And finally, Liesman chimes in for his last word: "It's impossible for you to have been more wrong, Rick. Your call for inflation, the destruction of the dollar, the failure of the U.S. economy to rebound. Rick, it's impossible for you to have been more wrong. Every single bit of advice you gave would've lost people money, Rick."

Ouch.

Watch the whole thing below, it's pretty great.