All transactions and balances are public knowledge; that's how the blockchain works. You can use a mixing service or send money to a dicesite or something then back to a new address if you don't want people to know how much you have, but you're never going to be able to truly hide your balances or transactions.
Yep..what he said. The best way to "hide" how much YOU have is by not going on the internet and letting everyone know what YOUR bitcoin address is. Yeah, everything you do will still be recorded in the block chain, but as long as you don't make it obvious that those transactions are yours, who cares?
I see. So that means buying bitcoin in person, or using an escrow agent? And then using Armory or a heavy wallet that does not rely on a server to crunch the blockchain? And possibly using a BTC-paid proxy server or VPN or Tor when receiving money or sending money through Armory? Is that it?