Depends on what else happened. The banks failing would have been better though. They would have gone under, their bad debt would have been liquidated, housing prices would have fell more, and that's about it. The real problem is the low interest rates being held down by the Fed. We will have to face a deeper depression at some point when interest rates finally rise, but the longer it's held off the worse it will be. There is no easy fix, but there's definitely a correct one. The correct one is to let interest rates rise, let the banks fail, let housing prices bottom out, etc. We are living on debt and it's unsustainable. We have to start saving again, and producing. That will never happen until interest rates are allowed to go up and the Fed stops inflating the money supply, so it might be a long time. This has been building for decades, so it will be pretty severe when it finally happens, which is why it's being held off as long as possible. In the end failures of business are always good for the overall economy. That means inefficient, resource wasting companies fail. That's what's supposed to happen. Then other more sound companies buy up the failed ones. The doomsday scenario painted by the politicians was complete bs. Government is controlled by the megabanks, which is why they got bailed out. There was no other reason. The auto failures would have been even less eventful than the bank failures. Too big to fail is code word for too much money given to politicians to fail.