RETIREMENT PLAN? Truck and Barter is unimpressed with New York City's licensing of tour guides. (This post is the initial provocation.) Here's the short form of the argument: municipal licensing is a form of forced saving. You take out a business loan, pass the tests, get the medallion, do business, and then sell the medallion upon retirement for a large lump sum. Doesn't matter whether it's a taxi medallion (the canonical example) or any other occupational license, and the public interest is incidental.