In a particularly bad line in a woefully bad film, a billionaire played by Anthony Hopkins says: “Never feel sorry for a man who owns his own plane.” True, fewer investment bankers own their own planes than, perhaps, they would have you believe. Nevertheless, they are a hard bunch to feel sorry for. But if there was ever a time to, now would be it.

Banks are laying off staff by the thousand. Deutsche Bank became the latest to launch a mass cull when it said in July it would cut 1,500 staff from its investment bank. Goldman Sachs, the once dominant firm on Wall Street, has fired more than 3,200 staff in the past year - or fully 9% of its headcount. And the sun looks like it is about to set on large parts of Nomura's doomed international efforts in investment banking and trading with the loss of hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs.