Mike The Mover vs. The Furniture Police

In 1978, a young man named Mike Shanks started a moving business in the north end of Seattle. It was just him and a truck — a pretty small operation. Things were going great. Then one afternoon, he was pulled over and cited for moving without a permit.<br><br>The investigators who cited him were part of a special unit tasked with enforcing utilities and transportation regulations. Mike calls them the <em>furniture police</em>. To legally be a mover, Mike needed a license. Otherwise, he'd face fines — and even potentially jail time. But soon he'd learn that getting that license was nearly impossible.<br><br>Mike is the kind of guy who just can't back down from a fight. This run-in with the law would set him on a decade-long crusade against Washington's furniture moving industry, the furniture police, and the regulations themselves. It would turn him into a notorious semi-celebrity, bring him to courtrooms across the state, lead him to change his legal name to 'Mike The Mover,' and send him into the furthest depths of Washington's industrial regulations.<br><br>The fight was personal. But it drew Mike into a much larger battle, too: An economic battle about regulation, and who it's supposed to protect. <br><br><em>Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in </em><a href="http://n.pr/PM-digital"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em> or at </em><a href="https://n.pr/3HlREPz"><em>plus.npr.org/planetmoney</em></a><em>.</em>