Could the IMF run out of money?

There’s gold, too. The IMF owns, at last reckoning, more than $9 billion worth of the stuff (but an 85 percent supermajority of its membership is required to sell or buy any of it). The IMF can also borrow more money from wealthy member countries, with up to $53 billion extra available through two supplementary agreements if need be. And flailing countries can turn elsewhere for financing; the United States gave cash and loan guarantees worth $20 billion directly to Mexico in 1995.

In emergency situations, when a country is having trouble paying back loans that are due imminently, a SWAT team will go to the supplicating country to figure out what policies and how much short-term financing are needed. The IMF doesn’t quite carry the Domino’s half-hour guarantee, but it claims to be able to have a decision back to you in as little as 48 hours after its board receives a report on the situation. Only the hardiest currencies, like yen and U.S. dollars, are lent out (although a few Botswanan pulas might be out on offer).

The aid doesn’t come for free. There are loan repayments—the IMF actually takes a cut on every deal, lending out to needy countries at a higher interest rate than it pays back to “donor” countries. Plus, the IMF might insist that the receiving country commit to cutting domestic food subsidies or reduce its budget deficit—“structural adjustment” policies that formed part of the “Washington consensus” in the 1980s and 1990s and which still inspire anti-globalization types to pull out their black balaclavas. The IMF remembers the bitter taste those policies left with local populations and has pledged “fewer and more targeted” conditions this time around (and on Wednesday agreed to waive austerity measures in emerging economies). But if a country stalls in its reforms, the IMF can stop the flow of cash—a pretty big stick when, say, Turkey is sitting at its kitchen table with bills to pay.