The words “suffering” and “banker” do not go together often. But the rescue of Bear Stearns, the Wall Street investment bank, this week, is a rare case of their collision.

When the US Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, engineered the takeover of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase, it endorsed the virtual wiping out of Bear’s shares, a third of which are held by Bear’s 14,000 employees. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, offered $2 a share, or about $237m, for a bank that was worth $20bn at its peak and $9.5bn only three weeks ago.