I recently joined the board of my Manhattan co-op, and I love it. One of my duties is reviewing applications for apartments, which – as both a prospective neighbour and a retirement economist – has been a revelation.It turns out, based on not only my limited sample but also more rigorous and representative surveys, a surprising number of people have no idea what they are doing when it comes to their finances. It’s not just the young folks with their online retail addictions. This is a multi-generational problem that spans income and wealth groups, and it’s getting worse.