Both remedies will be center stage tomorrow, when Bush meets with finance ministers from the world's richest countries at an unusual White House meeting to swap ideas.
Bush's invitation to finance ministers from Britain, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Japan came on a day of phone calls and letters between European leaders and with Washington. Officials struggled to fashion a coordinated response to the ailing global banking system before going to Washington for annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
With credit markets frozen and stock markets around the world in a deep swoon, there is a growing consensus that the crisis is now so fast-moving and harmful to the global economy that it demands an unprecedented degree of coordination.
The Treasury's openness to direct infusions of cash is a remarkable change in tone from a few weeks ago, when the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, discouraged such actions in testimony before Congress.
Treasury officials, however, said the emphasis changed in the past week, largely because stock markets kept spiraling down.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain made the case, in a letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, for another option gaining favor among economists - guaranteeing short- and medium-term loans between banks. By persuading banks to resume lending to each other, the plan aims to shake loose the paralyzed credit market. "This is an area where a concerted international approach could have a very powerful effect," Brown said in the two-page letter.
Administration officials are discussing aspects of the British proposal but said different economies have varying rules that complicate joint action. A senior administration official argued that expecting an agreement on proposals like Brown's would be "irrationally raising expectations."
Still, recapitalizing the banks and jump-starting their lending top the list of remedies that many economists are now suggesting. By acting in concert, countries can maximize the punch of their actions, these experts said, while avoiding distortions that occur when countries go different ways.
"At a minimum, you want to curtail damage," said Carmen M. Reinhart, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland. "You don't want the beggar-thy-neighbor policies that characterized the Great Depression."
