The popular portrayal of bloated plutocrats has changed enormously in the last 150 years , devolving from the 19 th century 's ferocious robber barons , to that guy on the Monopoly box who was always chasing his secretary around his desk in New Yorker cartoons , to the addled and ineffectual potbellies of Depression-era screwball comedy .
The perception of plutocrats has not changed much in the last 150 years .