My first reaction was that they were using the European thousands separator. But the few very large values follow US practice. Some appear to be conversions from pounds by someone who just wrote what the calculator told them.

This is similar to what happened during the first (second?) attempt by the US to go metric. The media would convert values known to one decimal place to six places:
"Oh, it's about a hundred yards between the trees." became
"Oh, it's about 91.44 meters between the trees." instead of
"Oh, it's about a tenth of a km between the trees." or "Oh, it's about a hundred meters between the trees." according to taste.

"If you give him an inch he'll take a mile."
"If you give him 25.4 mm he'll take 1609.34 meters."

It got pretty silly, although the last one was used satirically about the actions of the media at the time.