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0:17

This is Planet Money from

0:19

NPR.

0:23

You know how back in the day people used

0:25

to take last names based on their

0:27

professions all the time? You

0:29

had the brewers, the bakers, the

0:32

masons, a lot of smiths. The

0:34

other day we met the modern equivalent. All

0:37

right, so Mike, sorry, mover,

0:39

I don't know how I refer to you. Mover.

0:43

My mother even called me mover. At

0:45

birth she named him Michael Patrick

0:47

Shanks, but now he's, yeah, he's

0:50

a mover. And

0:51

everyone calls him mover. It's his legal

0:53

last name. He showed us his driver's license.

0:56

It's M-O-V as in Victor, E-R. Mover

1:00

as in mover. Mover.

1:03

Mike started a moving business in Seattle in

1:05

the late 1970s. And one

1:07

day in 1987, he had an encounter that would change his life.

1:12

Mike and another guy spent the morning hauling

1:14

furniture and boxes down flights of stairs,

1:17

loading their trucks, and then they headed

1:19

to the customer's new place. On the way, they

1:21

stopped for lunch at the burger joint. As

1:24

we were pulling into the parking lot, I noticed

1:26

there was an unmarked car behind me with

1:29

reds and blues flashing in the windshield.

1:32

I thought, what the hell

1:34

could this be? And

1:36

they jumped out and they had uniforms on.

1:39

They pulled out their badges and showed,

1:41

we're the furniture police.

1:44

They weren't officially called that, but they explained

1:46

to Mike they were state investigators

1:49

for the Utilities and Transportation Commission.

1:51

And their job was, in part, to

1:53

enforce regulations governing

1:56

the moving business. Yeah, so

1:58

to Mike, the furniture. police. My

2:02

partner, he jumped out of his truck and

2:04

the officer, furniture

2:07

police said, let me see your ID. And

2:10

my partner said, let me see your ID. So

2:12

he pulled out his badge and shoved it in his face.

2:15

And me, I just sat there basically

2:17

wondering what the hell is going on here. They

2:20

told Mike they were issuing him a citation

2:22

because this move and his entire

2:25

moving business were illegal.

2:27

Under the rules and regulations of the state of Washington,

2:30

Mike needed a permit.

2:31

And he did not have one.

2:33

And the penalty he faced for this was pretty

2:35

severe, a $5,000 fine and a year in

2:38

jail. They

2:40

read the riot act. I

2:42

said, hey, I don't know what you guys are up to, but we're

2:44

going to lunch, okay? No, you're doing

2:47

a illegal move. I said, no,

2:49

I'm not. I'm going to lunch. They

2:52

wrote me a citation, got in the car and left. We

2:54

went and ate lunch.

2:55

How were you feeling at that moment? I didn't give

2:57

a crap. I had a job to do.

3:00

Mike would soon learn that getting his hands on one of those

3:02

moving permits would prove nearly

3:04

impossible. He didn't know it yet, but

3:06

he had stumbled across a battle about regulation

3:09

and what it's good for. It's a battle that plays

3:11

out every day in nearly every industry,

3:14

usually in kind of boring lawyerly

3:16

ways.

3:17

But Mike is not a lawyer and

3:19

he is certainly not boring. For

3:21

him, this wasn't about some big lofty ideal.

3:24

He's just the kind of person who can't back away from

3:27

a conflict, who even seems to

3:29

enjoy it. So this would get personal.

3:32

Mike would launch a decade-long fight to

3:34

settle a score and fight

3:36

himself caught up in a much bigger fight

3:39

about who exactly regulation is

3:41

supposed to protect.

3:44

Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Nick Fountain.

3:47

And I'm Dylan Sloan. When the government sets

3:49

out to regulate an industry, there is a spectrum

3:52

of approaches it can take. At one extreme,

3:54

let anybody come in and do business as

3:56

they please. Try to promote a free market.

3:59

There will be plenty of

3:59

competition which will drive down prices and

4:02

that will be good for consumers. But there's a downside

4:05

right. If you're letting just anyone

4:07

in shady operators can come

4:09

in and take advantage of people. And

4:11

if the government is worried about that it

4:13

can push things in the other direction and

4:15

add regulations to protect consumers.

4:18

And here's the peculiar thing. That

4:21

more regulated world is

4:24

often the world that existing businesses want.

4:26

It's the world Mike found himself living

4:29

in. And

4:29

he was going to fight to change it.

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5:28

After he finished his burger unloaded his truck

5:30

and folded his moving blankets Mike started

5:33

trying to figure out how to get a moving

5:35

permit because

5:36

he wanted to fight this charge from the furniture police.

5:38

Well I wanted to prove to the court I'm just

5:41

not your normal outlaw.

5:43

I just want to know how do you get a

5:45

permit to be a mover. Mike figured

5:47

might as well show up and ask. I went down

5:50

to the headquarters of the furniture

5:52

police. And I got and

5:54

I got into the belly of the beast. That's right.

5:57

That is the Seattle office of the utilities

5:59

and transportation.

5:59

Commission, the UTC. They're the

6:02

agency that regulates moving companies in the state

6:04

of Washington. And Mike told them he

6:06

wanted to go legit to get a permit.

6:08

They said, you're wasting your time. Did

6:10

you ask them to detail the process? Yeah. I

6:12

asked yes, and I also asked for an application

6:15

form. They said,

6:16

we're telling you, you're wasting your time.

6:19

Mike says the UTC told them that they hadn't issued

6:21

a new permit in a long time, like decades.

6:24

We tried to figure out exactly how long

6:26

we asked the UTC about this, and

6:28

they said they're records don't go back that far.

6:31

But one former high ranking UTC

6:33

official told us that it is probably the case

6:36

that when Mike visited the office in the late 80s,

6:38

no new permits had been issued for like 40 years.

6:41

So the

6:43

message Mike is hearing is basically, we

6:45

do not give out new permits. Tough

6:48

luck. Not the answer he was

6:50

looking for. According to him, he got

6:52

pretty mad, said some mean words, eventually

6:55

got kicked out of the office.

6:57

And we should say, Mike is

6:59

kind of a loose cannon. In

7:02

fact, he's been known to drive around Seattle with a

7:04

working cannon in the back of his pickup truck.

7:06

That one's not loose, it's bolted to the truck.

7:09

Also to walk around downtown dressed

7:11

as Civil War generals, both

7:13

Union and Confederate, the

7:16

UTC would eventually get an injunction against him

7:18

after he sent some unsavory photos.

7:21

Yeah, he's a known figure. Ask

7:24

any Seattleites of the flannel and nirvana

7:26

or if they know of Mike the mover, and there's a decent

7:28

chance they've heard of him,

7:30

including Bruce Ramsey. I was

7:32

a reporter, a business reporter

7:34

and columnist at the Seattle

7:36

Morning newspaper, the Post Intelligence

7:39

for about 15 years. And then

7:41

after that, I was an editorial writer and

7:44

columnist for the Seattle Times for

7:46

about 15 years. You had to write

7:48

what, a column a week for two decades

7:50

or something like that? Yeah, I did.

7:53

Mike was pretty good fodder for columns, huh?

7:55

He was, he was.

7:58

Bruce was a business reporter. He loved

8:00

a regulation story. And he's looked into

8:03

the history of moving regulations in Washington. The

8:05

regulations were first put in place during the Great Depression.

8:08

And like for some good reasons. So that

8:10

customers would know what they were going to have to pay and

8:13

so there would be some recourse if a mover lost

8:15

or broke their stuff. And then for

8:17

decades, nobody had really touched

8:20

these rules.

8:21

The state had grown, the economy had grown,

8:23

the population had grown, and the home moving

8:25

industry had been exactly

8:28

the same.

8:29

It hadn't grown. It had actually shrunk.

8:32

Because it was hard to get a permit to start

8:34

a new moving company.

8:35

There was like technically a way to do it. You

8:37

had to take some reasonable steps like submitting

8:39

some financial information, listing your equipment,

8:42

and agreeing to regular inspections. And

8:44

then you had to show up at a hearing.

8:47

And

8:47

when you finally got your hearing, this

8:49

is where the process was so stacked against new entrants,

8:52

it was almost laughable. Here's

8:54

why. It was on you to

8:56

prove that there was a sufficient need for another

8:58

mover in the area where you wanted to set up shop.

9:01

And here's the kicker.

9:03

The owners of the already established

9:05

licensed moving companies would also

9:07

be at this hearing. And they'd say, well, we don't need

9:09

these guys. We can handle all the business.

9:12

Yeah, I mean, who wouldn't say you don't

9:14

need competition?

9:16

Well, that's it. And

9:19

who's going to stand up and say, I

9:21

think we ought to have new competitors

9:23

to compete against me.

9:26

And if those companies said there was no need

9:29

for new movers in that area, that

9:31

could kill your permit application.

9:33

During this time, everyone who applied

9:35

for a new permit was getting turned down,

9:37

including Mike. His permit

9:39

application was denied. The

9:42

first of five times this would eventually happen, according

9:44

to court records. Yeah, when Bruce heard

9:46

about how the established movers could keep

9:49

newcomers like Mike out of the industry,

9:51

he thought, wait

9:52

a minute, is there something fishy

9:54

going on here? It caught my ear

9:56

because I had taken

9:59

some economic...

9:59

economics courses in college and

10:02

had heard the theory

10:05

of how sometimes

10:07

an industry which is regulated

10:10

in order to supposedly protect

10:12

the public and protect the consumers, how

10:14

that regulation gets captured by

10:16

the industry itself. And

10:19

really, the regulation protects

10:21

the people who are in the industry from anybody

10:23

competing with them. So I had heard the

10:25

theory, and this was a case that

10:28

seemed to fit that exactly.

10:30

The term for this is regulatory

10:32

capture.

10:33

It's just like Bruce said, when an industry

10:35

is able to influence the regulations that are

10:38

supposedly keeping them in line for

10:40

their own benefit. And to Bruce, it seemed

10:42

like Washington's movers had done just that.

10:44

Under this system, they got to go to these hearings

10:47

and have a direct influence on who got a license.

10:49

They could tell the state to keep their competitors

10:52

out.

10:52

And furniture moving was such a niche industry

10:55

that nobody really noticed or cared

10:57

enough to change things. Yeah, like maybe this

10:59

was hurting consumers by making their moves,

11:01

I don't know, $200 more expensive.

11:04

But how to do move? Most people are just going to shrug

11:06

it off and say, you know what, moving's the worst

11:08

and not think about it for a while. And

11:10

most would-be movers are just going to say, fine,

11:13

if I can't be a mover, I'll try out plumbing

11:16

or teaching.

11:17

Seems better. But not Mike.

11:20

No, because Mike, remember, does

11:22

not back down.

11:24

He kept on moving. Illegally.

11:26

And as soon as Mike returned

11:28

to business, the furniture police were on

11:31

to him. How long did it take for you to be

11:33

on first-name basis with him? Oh,

11:36

probably a month or two. It was like

11:38

the furniture police were following

11:41

him. How did they find you? Like how

11:43

did they know where you were? Well,

11:46

that's the great question. It's

11:50

called stealing a customer. Stealing

11:52

a customer. Here's what he means. If

11:54

you ever hired a mover, you know you got to shop around

11:56

for quotes. But that was kind of pointless

11:59

in Washington at the time.

11:59

time because all the licensed moving companies

12:02

charged exactly the same rates. The

12:04

regulations forced them to. But if a customer

12:07

were to call Mike, he could

12:09

undercut the other movers. He wasn't

12:11

licensed. He didn't have to abide by the rate

12:13

regulations. He didn't have to pay for as much insurance,

12:15

could wriggle out of payroll taxes, so

12:18

he was cheaper.

12:19

He'd steal the big company's customers. And

12:21

then according to Mike's theory, they

12:23

would get suspicious. And they called the customer

12:26

and said, who did you decide to pick as your mover?

12:28

Oh, Mike's the mover. So

12:31

they knew exactly where the house was. They

12:34

knew what day they were moving and all they

12:36

had to do is get those furniture

12:38

police in a

12:39

squad car and sit outside the house and watch. What

12:43

was the standard interaction with the furniture police

12:45

like? Give us a scene. Very ugly. They

12:48

would try to act tough,

12:50

but they weren't like my movers. We're

12:53

all a bunch of beasts. It's

12:56

not like it ever came to fisticuffs. They would

12:58

just take the ticket and finish the move. And

13:00

to be clear, there were other unlicensed movers

13:03

out there. There were a lot of them, but Mike just

13:05

seemed to be the favorite of the furniture police, maybe

13:08

because he didn't exactly try

13:10

to keep a low profile.

13:11

I mean, he had a bunch of employees driving big

13:13

trucks with Mike, the mover painted on

13:16

the side, but they got bigger and I had more

13:18

employees. My employees would now get inside it.

13:21

So the number just kept growing and growing. And

13:23

I'd go down to court. They said the

13:25

judge, Mr. Mover, you

13:27

have a total of 22 citations

13:29

in this court. Mike

13:33

was cited at least 57 times,

13:35

according to court documents. He spent

13:38

a lot of time in court. He had to pay

13:40

some fines. He even had to spend a night

13:42

in jail. But

13:43

as soon as he got out, he got right back to it. Here's

13:46

Bruce Ramsey, the journalist from before. He

13:48

had no fear. I mean, usually,

13:51

you know, when the state government threatens to

13:53

confiscate your trucks and

13:56

shut you down and take your office

13:58

equipment and find you.

15:54

platform

16:00

for Lieutenant Governor was there

16:03

are furniture police? Well,

16:05

that was part of it, but I talked about a lot

16:07

of things about government. The

16:11

Lieutenant Governor doesn't do anything.

16:13

Is that why you wanted the job? No,

16:16

because they run the Senate.

16:17

Mike wasn't in it to run the Senate, but

16:20

he really did campaign. And how did

16:22

you feel going into the election? Did you think you were going to

16:24

win? No, I thought I would do pretty well, but I only got 2%.

16:27

So you actually wanted to win this thing? Well,

16:31

I wanted to do better than 2%. He

16:33

actually did do a little better than he remembered. He got 3.5%.

16:37

But soon, Mike began to realize that the election

16:39

might not have been a total loss.

16:42

After all, even if they didn't vote for him,

16:44

everyone who voted in the

16:47

Washington State Democratic primary saw

16:49

his name on the ballot. Over time, I started

16:51

figuring, hey, I'm making money off this. When

16:55

did you first realize that?

16:57

Well, instantly, within

16:59

the time period I had filed for office,

17:02

in the time of the election, my business was

17:04

starting to go through the roof.

17:06

Mike had gotten into the game to expose the furniture

17:08

police. And he was doing that. A

17:11

lot more people were hearing about this whole moving

17:13

regulation situation. But

17:15

he'd also unintentionally stumbled

17:17

upon a business idea.

17:20

Running for office was a way to basically just promote

17:22

his business for free.

17:24

In the ad biz, this has a name,

17:25

Earned Media.

17:27

And Mike really went for it.

17:29

Most people that run for office the first time,

17:32

they lose and it crushes their ego. And I

17:34

thought, I'm not losing. I'm winning every time I run.

17:37

I'm getting free publicity. Yeah,

17:39

the list of races he's entered is extensive.

17:42

Even he kind of has trouble keeping track. I've

17:45

run 19 times. Again, he's

17:47

underestimating. We check state records. It's

17:49

actually 21 times. Lieutenant

17:51

Governor, U.S. Senate House of Representatives,

17:54

Governor, Mayor of Seattle, Mayor

17:56

of Edmonds, Snohomish County

17:59

Sheriff.

17:59

King County executive, state of Washington.

18:03

For a while, Mike tried to get his name to appear

18:05

on the ballot as Mike, quote, the mover

18:07

shanks to keep a consistent brand when advertising

18:10

his business. But the state told him

18:12

that his nickname couldn't have anything to do with his line

18:14

of work. So in 1990, he

18:17

just changed his legal name to

18:19

Mike the mover. He actually changed it again

18:21

a few years ago to Uncle Mover,

18:24

but he still goes by mover.

18:26

And every chance Mike or mover got, he would

18:29

rail against the fat cat moving companies

18:31

and the regulator supporting them,

18:33

including Don Lewis. You're

18:35

sort of like the chief of police.

18:38

Correct. The chief of

18:40

the furniture police. Well, that's

18:42

your words. Mike's

18:45

words. Okay. Don

18:47

worked at the UTC for 25 years,

18:50

started off inspecting trucks at the Oregon

18:52

border, then became an investigator,

18:54

aka furniture police, then

18:57

special investigator, aka

18:58

special furniture

19:01

police. By the time Mike started

19:03

getting pulled over, Don was the boss of the

19:05

entire furniture police

19:07

force of the state of Washington. And other

19:09

than the name furniture police, Don

19:12

pretty much agreed with what Mike said about

19:14

how this would all go down.

19:15

The furniture police did have squad cars

19:18

with lights. They did pull people over and

19:20

issue citations. They even did stakeouts

19:23

when they heard that an illegal mover might be in the area.

19:25

Steak outs. Love it. Steak out. Oh

19:28

yeah.

19:28

I'm picturing it like a Western

19:31

film showdown. Like you

19:33

got the furniture police and against the outlaw

19:35

movers and there's tumbleweed going by.

19:38

Well, not in the city of Seattle or King

19:41

County. There's no tumbleweeds here.

19:45

Don told us he had plenty of interactions

19:47

with Mike. He said they were mostly cordial.

19:50

He did end up testifying against Mike at a

19:52

permit hearing at least once. And Don,

19:54

he thinks of himself as a by-the-book kind

19:56

of guy.

19:57

He even knows the exact line of the administration.

20:00

street of code that governs movers. Chapter 480

20:03

was seared into my memory. And

20:06

he said, remember, those moving regulations

20:08

did have a reason for being. The reason

20:11

was to provide the consumer

20:14

with an authorized mover that had a safe

20:17

operation who had charged

20:20

the correct rates, did not hold

20:22

household goods up for hostage, and,

20:26

you know, that they're everybody played

20:28

by the same rules. Did you ever

20:31

start to feel that the rules were less

20:33

about consumer protection

20:35

and more about protecting

20:37

the incumbent movers, the ones who already had the

20:39

licenses?

20:42

I don't know that I would say that it was about

20:44

protecting them. It did

20:46

protect them to some extent. And

20:50

you know, but they had gone through

20:52

the process. And then

20:54

you had somebody that was, you know,

20:56

just Joe Blow around the block,

20:59

buys a truck and says, hey, I'm going to

21:01

get in the household good moving business. And

21:04

it really, the consumer would be

21:07

the one that really loses in the long run.

21:10

I mean, not if Joe Blow follows

21:13

rules and regulations. The problem was that Joe Blow

21:16

couldn't even get a permit if he tried, right?

21:19

That's true. He,

21:22

you know, many years

21:25

went by that no new

21:28

applicant got a household

21:30

good license. For decades, nobody

21:33

had cared about that fact.

21:35

But by the late 90s, the tide was

21:37

turning.

21:38

Industries like trucking had been deregulated

21:40

federally, and Washington state legislators

21:43

were starting to take a hard look at what was going

21:45

on in the moving world, thanks in large part

21:47

to Mike's rabble rousing. And

21:50

in 1998, the Utilities and Transportation

21:52

Commission called a big hearing to consider upending

21:55

half a century of Washington state

21:57

regulatory tradition.

21:59

was there and said it was tense.

22:01

The regulators packed everyone into a room. There

22:04

were the licensed movers and then Mike

22:06

and the other illegal movers. I

22:08

don't know what movers wear on a day to day. Did they break

22:11

out the suits for this? I think the attorney

22:13

for the movers were wearing a suit, but those

22:16

movers, I mean, they were beefy guys.

22:20

They don't wear suits and ties to

22:22

move furniture. No, they

22:24

weren't wearing suits. The regulators heard

22:26

arguments from both sides. Most of the licensed

22:28

movers, of course, said these

22:29

rules are good for customers and we don't

22:32

need any more movers.

22:33

The president of one

22:36

of the licensed movers was

22:39

mentioning that the Port Angeles Market,

22:42

it's a city out in the Olympic Peninsula, there's

22:44

only enough business for

22:46

two movers. And he said, well,

22:48

if somebody new moves in, one of the two

22:51

would have to get out. And the regulator asked,

22:53

well, how exactly would that hurt

22:55

the public interest? And

22:58

well, he says that the people who were employed by

23:00

that company would

23:01

no longer be employed. And

23:04

Mike jumps up and says, hey,

23:06

that's how it works in business, folks. So

23:10

he he added a little spice to

23:12

the proceedings.

23:13

Mike was saying, let competition

23:16

do its thing. Get

23:18

rid of these licensing rules. He'd been saying

23:20

that for over a decade, ever since he first

23:22

got pulled over.

23:24

And finally, the UTC, which

23:26

had been sending its investigators after Mike for

23:28

years, they decided

23:30

Mike had a point.

23:32

Regulators had to try to strike a balance between

23:34

protecting consumers on the one hand

23:37

and letting in a new generation of movers on

23:39

the other.

23:40

And after these hearings, the UTC decided

23:42

that balance was off. It should

23:45

be easier to get a moving permit. Mike

23:48

won. These days, if you want

23:50

to hire movers in Washington state, you

23:52

have many more choices than you would have had 30

23:54

years ago and adjusted for inflation. It's

23:57

cheaper now that it used to be to move.

23:59

It's also easier. to get a moving permit.

24:01

You have to submit a bunch of paperwork and go through a criminal

24:03

background check. But then that's it. No hearing. $550

24:06

and a webinar later and you can have a

24:09

provisional license. Start doing moves

24:12

the next day.

24:13

Loosening the requirements does mean that

24:15

some bad actors slip through the cracks though.

24:18

I talked to a woman from Washington who a couple

24:20

years ago hired a licensed moving company

24:22

she found online. They showed up, she

24:24

paid them a little over $6,000. They loaded her life's

24:27

possessions onto a truck

24:29

and then just vanished. She got to her new house

24:32

and they just never came. It sounded absolutely

24:35

awful.

24:35

As for Mike, he kept his business running

24:38

for a while longer. And as for his permit?

24:41

They offered me a permit and I told them to

24:43

shove it. If you can't catch me after 10

24:46

years, 11 years doing this, you're

24:48

never going to get me. And why should I accept

24:50

your permit that

24:53

I didn't apply for? You just handed

24:55

it over to me.

24:58

I'm not going to lie. That's weird, Mike. It's

25:00

weird that you fought against

25:02

the system that wouldn't give you a permit for

25:04

so long. And then when they made it easier

25:07

for you to get a permit,

25:08

you just didn't do it. No, because

25:10

I was beating them so bad that they deserved

25:13

the beating. So why

25:15

would I go along? But what beating? What

25:17

point were you making by not getting the permit? Well,

25:22

hey, can I take that over? Sure.

25:26

Sure.

25:29

As you can probably tell, Mike is

25:31

not acting here in the way that most people would act.

25:34

And his victory? It came at a high cost.

25:37

He pursued this fight over lots of other things

25:39

in his life that he could have been doing.

25:41

But here's the thing about a system like

25:43

the one Mike was fighting.

25:45

The benefits are they go

25:47

to just a handful of people, the incumbent

25:49

movers. But the costs are

25:51

spread out.

25:52

Sure, everyone's moves get a little

25:54

more expensive and a handful of people

25:57

decide not to become movers. And

25:59

that's what makes the system work.

25:59

this kind of system so hard to

26:02

change.

26:03

If you're one of the people bearing that small

26:05

cost,

26:06

it's not logical for you to spend your

26:08

whole life fighting it.

26:10

So to fix a problem like that, maybe

26:14

you need a person like Mike, who's

26:17

willing to wage a battle that any reasonable

26:19

person would drop.

26:26

This episode was produced by Willow Rubin and

26:28

edited by Sally Helm, fact-checked

26:30

by Sierra Juarez, engineered

26:32

by Maggie Luthar. Will Chase helped

26:35

with the research. Jess Jang is our acting

26:37

executive producer. Special thanks to Tim

26:39

Sullivan, Brian McCulloch, Bill Brown,

26:41

and Diane DeAltremont. And many,

26:44

many thanks to you, Dylan. Dylan pitched

26:46

this story when he was an intern. He's

26:48

made hundreds of calls on it, really got

26:51

into the details of moving regulations

26:53

in Washington state. Thank you, Dylan.

26:56

Thank

26:56

you. I never thought I would know

26:58

so much about moving. Tell

27:02

the people what you're doing next. Next couple

27:05

months, I'll be slinging pizzas

27:07

at a small outdoor pizzeria

27:09

on Peaks Island off the coast of Portland,

27:11

Maine. And beyond then, who

27:13

knows? Sail in the world. I'm

27:17

Nick Fountain. And I'm Dylan Sloan.

27:19

This is NPR.

27:20

Thanks for listening.

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