The Star Tribune launched infoCenter today — a place where you can view salaries of select public employees as well as real estate transactions, homicide maps and other intriguing data.

The paper across the river also recently launched a salary database for public employees.

As one who is on the liberal side when it comes to sharing my personal financial data, the sites don’t bother me. But I imagine others, especially those who have their salaries listed, may feel uncomfortable.

How would you feel if your salary were listed for your friends and family to look up?

I’ve always been a proponent of making money a less taboo subject. Then we can finally put those Joneses to rest and perhaps some of the credit card debt along with ‘em.

Today, the Wall Street Journal’s work and family blog The Juggle has a post about whether sharing salary could be beneficial, helping to reduce salary disparities at work and eliminate the sometimes damaging assumptions that people might have about who makes what.

The blog mentioned a story in The New York Times from a couple of weeks back that I’m surprised I missed (Oh– they put it in the Fashion section– I guess it’s fashionable to talk salary).

Anyway, the story is about how people in their 20s and 30s are more likely to share their salaries with each other than workers in older generations.

It’s a thought provoking story, but when I read this paragraph, I couldn’t help but think, oh puh-leeze:

For people old enough to remember phone booths, a blunt reference to salary in a social setting still represents the height of bad manners. But for many young professionals, the don’t-ask-don’t-tell etiquette of previous generations seems like a relic.

There was a phone book junking up my front steps when I got home from work yesterday. They aren’t like do-do birds or dinosaurs. Clearly I am so old that I need glasses, or so young that I hadn’t even heard of those booth-things so I figured it must be a typo. Sorry for the confusion.

And I bet that most people still don’t reveal their salaries without at least considering whether they should first– even if they are 25.

I’ll say from my experience that salary still is not a comfortable discussion in my circle of friends.

What do you think? And if you’ve been dying to tell people how much you make, or are willing to trade your salary in a “safe place” in order to gain insight on others’ salaries, do spill.

This just in.

Peter Bielagus, an author and financial educator who has given himself the lofty title of “Young America’s Financial Coach,” is giving away money.

He is collecting 250 word essays from entrepreneurs ages 12 to 19 about their business ideas. Write about a venture that’s up and running or in the planning stages and you could win a$1,000 grand prize. The 100 runners-up receive one of his free Quick Cash For Kids entrepreneurship guide.

Send the essays to peter@peterbspeaks.com with the word “contest” in the subject line.

Here’s a link from SCORE to several web sites for young entrepreneurs, although I think the retired folks who run that organization have geared the list to college aged kids.

I have a gazillion entrepreneurial thoughts– from opening an ice cream shop in my neighborhood to writing a newsletter for financial adviser geared towards their client’s young adult kids. But there’s a big difference between coming up with ideas and executing them.

Entrepreneurs out there, do tell. How did you make the leap from steady paycheck to being your own boss?

We hear plenty about the obscene bonuses doled out on Wall Street. But what about on Nicollet Ave?

According to human resources firm Hewitt Associates 63 percent of companies will not award holiday bonuses this year, although many have performance-based bonuses that can be earned.

Insurance, health care, manufacturing and retail, in that order, give out the bulk of holiday-time bonuses.

I’ve never worked at a place that presented a holiday bonus to employees. A party, maybe. A free lunch perhaps. But never a cash gift.

How about you? If you get a bonus, share your company’s name or the industry that you work in. Also, how much do you receive and has that amount become more or less generous in recent years?

As a curious person with a tendency to lose interest in stuff (ask my husband about the belly dancing lessons and the rock climbing), I thought my job as a reporter and columnist is one of the best.

But this guy actually has a better one as I learned in this NYT story, which I found on Yahoo. Of course it’s getting a lot of interest. Here’s why:

The dude, Sean Aiken,