Regular POSIX (Unix) permissions are crude controls. Each file and directory has settings for its owner, group, and everyone else, which determine whether they can read, write or (where appropriate) execute that item. That lacks control over important subtleties, which could limit who can list folder contents, change extended attributes, permissions and ownership. For those we have to turn to ACLs, Access Control Lists, which have been supported in OS X since 10.4, but have been little used until recently.
Select your Home folder, for example, and Get Info on it. In the lowermost section Sharing & Permissions, it should state that you have “custom access”, while confirming that you have Read & Write privileges. You probably haven’t noticed it, but custom access is relatively recent, and indicates that, in addition to regular POSIX permissions, access to your Home folder is controlled by an ACL. Only the Finder can’t tell you any more than that.
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