This past spring, gourmet gift purveyor Harry & David filed for bankruptcy protection. The 77-year-old mail order company is an American business icon famous for its premium fruits, exquisite gift baskets and extraordinary service.

So what brought the high-end gift giant to its knees? The slide began in 2004, when a New York private equity firm purchased the Oregon-based company for $230 million in a highly leveraged buyout, only paying $82 million in cash. One year later, the private equity firm sold $245 million worth of bonds to pay off the debt and recoup its original investment. Later in 2005 they took out another $19 million. In one short year, the firm recovered 125% of its original investment and left Harry & David saddled with an insurmountable mountain of debt.

People who knew little about running a successful direct marketing business, let alone fruit baskets, were now calling the shots. Add an economic downturn and you have a recipe for disaster. Sales plummeted from $566 million in 2005 to $426 million in 2010 with only $6 million in operating profits and nearly $11 million in debt service.

When a leveraged buyout occurs, everyone loses except the private equity firms responsible for the destruction, in my opinion.

Wall Street vs. Main Street. For a long time, too many of our brightest and best graduates have been going to Wall Street. It is a new economic era where the U.S. is becoming poorer. Is there any chance that some of the folks will be accepting the challenges that Main Street has? Let's cheer for bright Americans who want to work for Ford, 3M, or Uline over Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Again, just an opinion.