The Bank of England and the European Central Bank — the two prime monetary authorities in Europe both announced rate cuts of half a percentage point Thursday, hitting the lowest levels ever.

Additionally, the Bank of England took the rare step of injecting cash in to the economy by purchasing £75 billion in government and corporate bonds. Rates in England are now at the institutions over-300 year history, suggesting that the recession may be deepening worldwide.

“Buying private debt is like spoon-feeding a sick person, but it only works if the private sector has an appetite for using the money to spend, if that does not work, the intravenous nourishment is to give the money to the government to stuff into people’s pockets,” said Thomas Mayer, in the NY Times.

President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, suggested that heterodox strategies may be employed to respond to what may be the worse recession in the area ever.

The European Central Bank said that the economic outlook has become much worse in the last three months, currently forecasting a contraction of up to 3.2 per cent.

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