Well, when it comes to whether or not it's a great depression is up to interpretation. I could be long, but I believe a recession is supposed to be either 2 or 3 negative quarters, and a depression is supposed to happen when you have 2 years worth of bad quarters. I could be completely wrong, but if I'm right then we would already be in a depression.
If you believe we are already in a depression, then the banks completely failing would definitely turn this into a great depression. Personally... woops... almost went political there for a moment. I think I'll leave that in the chat forum, or on facebook.
But I digress, without the bailouts things would have been worse off in the short term, whether or not it would have been better off in the long term, that's what I'm leaving out here.