My hunch is that they had to cartoon up the expenses a bit because a more realisitic version would have had cheaper prices but probably x10 the number of econom

My hunch is that they had to cartoon up the expenses a bit because a more realisitic version would have had cheaper prices but probably x10 the number of economic transactions, which would have bogged the game down. Same with the amount of bad luck situations. As an example, the player did have really bad luck - but no starting credit card debt, or rolling payday loan debt, or student loan debt from incomplete schooling...