The simple answer is that is what they are doing, inflating.
The slightly less simple answer is that they inflated in 2001 and it worked – for gold, silver, commodities and, eventually, stocks, roughly in that order. It also worked in 2008-2009 – for gold, silver, commodities and, eventually, stocks, roughly in that order.
The more complicated answer is that we are down a rabbit hole of debt, and the hole appears bottomless. What’s a few more trillion on top of un-payable trillions? As long as confidence remains intact in our monetary and fiscal authorities – and COVID-19 or no COVID-19, stock mini-crash or not, confidence to my eye is intact, speaking of my country, anyway. They will inflate, and what’s more, they will be called upon to inflate.
Confidence may be failing in other parts of the world but the average American is behind this thing they don’t even really understand, known as the Fed. The average American expects the bailout cheques from the fiscally reflating government, too. Angst, of which there has been plenty lately, is much different from lack of confidence.
I can’t include here all the ways and means the Fed has (frankly, I don’t know about them all) to prop the system, but if you go to the St. Louis Fed website, you will find a whole slew of Keynesian egghead stuff. They are on it!