Governments and central banks around the world are ripping up the policy rulebook as they battle to immunise their economies from deeper coronavirus carnage.
Printing new money, gargantuan debt spending, loan guarantees, tax breaks and even direct payments to workers are all in the highly unorthodox mix.
AFP surveys the latest responses by major economies as COVID-19 has spread from China to the rest of the world, making a global recession all but inevitable.
In the United States, Senate leaders and the White House early Wednesday struck agreement on a USD 2 trillion stimulus package for the world’s largest economy.
The biggest ever spending plan in US history had been knocked back by Democratic objections to the Republican plan, which was decried as a “slush fund” for bosses.
But party leaders overcame their differences to clinch a “wartime level of investment into our nation”, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
The Senate and House of Representatives still need to pass the legislation before sending it to President Donald Trump for his signature.
The package will put cash directly into the hands of Americans, provides grants to small businesses and hundreds of billions of dollars in loans for larger corporations including airlines, and expands unemployment benefits.
A separate package from US financial overseers including the Federal Reserve would provide a stunning USD 4 trillion in liquidity to juice up the economy.
The Fed has kept up near-daily announcements to keep dollars flowing, in addition to slashing its main lending rate to near zero.
On Monday, the Fed vowed to buy unlimited amounts of government debt -- akin to printing money -- and offered to lend directly to small- and medium-sized firms.
Some observers are demanding a collective response from the G7 and G20 to fight the pandemic, and help poorer nations who lack the borrowing capacity of their richer peers.