Can I set permissions to see one type of contribution, but not another?
A few years after the question was asked ... the answer is yes!

Financial ACL's were added a while back but the docs have not been updated yet.   


Go to Administer &gt; CiviContribute &gt; CiviContribute Component Settings, and tick Enable Access Control by Financial Type. 
Go to your CMS permissions to grant access to each financial type by role.


See this blog post for details.