I've been reading about Argentina's Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner being sentenced to six years in prison for steering public works contracts to her friend, and I have to say, I am so confused, and I really hope someone can help me understand.

So the way it works is, you get elected to one of the most powerful positions in the whole country, and the people who voted for you are trusting you to spend their money carefully and wisely, and then you just... give it to your mate? Like, your actual friend? And the friend gets the contracts not because he was the best or the cheapest or the most qualified, but because you two know each other? I just want to make sure I have this right.

Because where I grew up, if you were put in charge of something and you gave all the good stuff to your friends, that was called being unfair, and you got in trouble for it. Usually from a teacher. Or a parent. It was considered quite basic. Like one of the first things you learn.

What I find especially interesting is that this apparently went on for years and years and involved enormous amounts of public money, and the whole time, presumably, everyone around her understood how it worked and just sort of... let it happen? Like a very expensive, very sad game of pretend where everyone agrees not to say the obvious thing out loud?

I don't want to be rude. I'm sure she had her reasons. I'm sure her friend was very talented.

But I do have one small question: whose money did they think it was?

— Penny Goodfellow