Fears of a next wave of emerging market debt crises recently sparked a renewed debate about the adequacy of IMF resources and its toolkit. This column argues that the issue is not whether the IMF has sufficient resources for large-scale financial assistance to all of its members in need, but that such assistance would ultimately be counterproductive and could, in fact, exacerbate the risk of liquidity crises morphing into solvency crises. One of the reasons is that large-scale IMF financial assistance coupled with the IMF’s preferred creditor status can lead to a crowding-out of private investors by increasing their expected loss in the event of default. This underlines the need for all elements of the international monetary and financial system to assume their full responsibility, including the private sector.