With 1)
Well with the starting cash a large amount of it gets used to purchase the "base starter kit" that you get with your first base.
All those new buildings, ships, men etc cost money.
For instance the standard game claims $1.35 mill, which you have before you build your base, but after the fitout you have $100k, which seems reasonable to me.
But there does seem to be a bug with if you turn off started bases and employees you only get $936k left, really i think you probably should get $1.25 Mill left as it says the base costs $100k. Also with further bases costing $110K not $100K. But i wouldn't call that a huge deviation from expected.