Based on the Federal Reserve's 2010 triennial survey of consumer finances, people between 35 and 44 years old are the worst off.

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Now, though, almost 55% of U.S. households with heads ages 55 through 64 have mortgages, up from 34% in 1989, according to the Federal Reserve Board's survey of consumer finances.

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The new triennial Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released earlier this month reports that only 15% of families were invested in stocks directly in 2010, down from 21% in 2001.

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According to a 2010 Fed survey of consumer finances, just 11.7% of families in the 40 to 59.9 percentile of household income own stocks and 6% of families in the 20 to 40th percentile of income own stocks.

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One of the nicest by-products of the trip was to gain access to the first iteration of the Survey of Chinese Consumer Finances, collected by Tsinghua University and funded by Citibank (China) Co.

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