Parents have been saying it for years: every September checking accounts are shaking because of some practices with the most suspicious textbooks. Exorbitant prices and books that can barely be used from one year to the next because things have changed, are two facts that make everything related to that topic make us feel cheated.
That is why when we discover that investigations are initiated to several publishers by a possible cartel of textbooks one can only nod, nod "if I already said so", and wait for the cake to be discovered.
A cartel? But that is not of the drug?
It is a word that is widely used in reference to drug trafficking, but FACUA - Consumers in Action He has used it in his text and, what do you want me to tell you, when one is tired of feeling cheated everywhere in the face of your government's impassivity, for you say that "what the hell, that word is perfect", and you borrow it .
The dictionary says that a cartel is an "Agreement or association between commercial companies of similar production to avoid competition and control the production, sale and prices of certain goods", and that is precisely what is accused of several publishers.
As we read in the text of FACUA, the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has opened a disciplinary proceedings against Anele, Grupo SM, Grupo Anaya, Grupo Santillana, Oxford University Press (OUP), Edelvives, Edebé, McGraw Hill, McMillan, Pearson and Teide.
Apparently, it is suspected that they have reached agreements to distribute the market for the edition and subsequent commercialization of textbooks, in addition to set trade conditions and prices.
Thus, with all these publishers doing practically the same, at a very similar price, potential customers have no choice but to fall into the trap and go through the box making a large outlay, even if it means they have trouble reaching the end of the month. , even joking with that of "I hope that for what I have just paid for your books, at least I get a lawyer or minister."
Also in the books of Catholic centers
These practices could also be happening between the SM Group, Edebé and Edelvives, responsible for editing textbooks for catholic centers, and therefore it has been decided to also investigate these three publishers in reference to this possibility.
The answer? In maximum 18 months
Now that we have the "trailer" of the new series "Narcos de los Libros", we will only have to wait until the results of these investigations are made public.
The CNMC has clarified that the file that has been opened only speaks of suspicions, and that in a maximum period of 18 months the resolution will be known by the commission.
Hey, maybe in the end there are no such practices. If so, if they are all innocent publishers, please ask that governments mediate and begin to give importance to the education and culture of our children, which are the future of the country, and do not allow us to leave the empty wallet at the beginning of the course (I am thinking of grants, logically, in the creation of an independent commission that can write and publish its own non-textbooks profit, as a social good, or in a teaching with fewer books and more participation of children in the search and creation of information, to leave some ideas).
And if they are guilty, then the same thing: that they bear the guilt and that the governments find a way to ensure that the books do not have a prohibitive price (or at least give you something when you buy them: a flat TV, a bicycle, a kitchen robot… ).
I still remember how in our childhood the books lasted us years and we were passing them from one brother to another, or cousins, or friends. And it is that the sums are still addition, subtraction, subtraction, water is still H2O and Columbus discovered America the same year 1492 in all books.
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