Consider:

• America's gross domestic product is $13.8 trillion. The world total is $54.3 trillion, meaning that we Yanks contribute fully 26% of the world's total. Or, to put it another way: 74% of global commerce takes place entirely absent of us. 

• The U.S. dollar, in which the majority of your wealth is denominated, has plummeted in the past five years. It's lost -18% against the pound, -22% against the ruble and -23% versus the euro. The greenback has tumbled -33% to the Chilean peso, for crying out loud.  

• Last year, an incredible 182 countries throughout the globe delivered stronger economic growth than the U.S. Most people probably would have a hard time even naming 50 countries off the top of their head.  Take Palau, for example. You'd need a computer to find it on a map, but its dervish-like little economy is growing at +5.5% vs. little-to-no growth here at home this year.

Over the next few years, the U.S. will do just fine. In many sectors, corporate earnings remain solid. And America is still the beacon and benchmark for the rest of the world. When international trouble or disaster strikes, no one calls Singapore -- they get on the horn to Uncle Sam.

Even so, the rest of the world -- at least economically -- is growing ever larger in the rearview mirror. It's gaining fast. Thanks to falling trade barriers and modern technology, the global marketplace is spreading wealth to countries formerly trapped in poverty -- including the world's largest emerging markets, sleeping giants like China and India, whose fast-growing economies are THE financial story of the century.

These international players are hungry to take part in the NBA-like competition of the global marketplace. They've built infrastructure and invested in education. They've reached critical mass -- and serious investors simply can't ignore them any longer. A portfolio that buys only companies here at home is missing out on the vast majority of the world's growth . . . and most of its highest-yielding stocks.

Foreign growth rates are far outpacing the U.S.

U.S. GDP growth is miniscule.

Add in the mortgage mess, credit crisis, record oil prices, rising food costs, the budget deficit and trade gap -- friends, it's double-drill with no canteen for U.S. investors. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has said so himself, albeit in rather more dignified language. Though the U.S. economy is likely to take it on the chin this year, that's not the case for the rest of the world. My chart shows the International Monetary Fund's growth projections for the U.S. and a handful of potential investment

The U.S. is a dividend desert; move to an oasis

America represents a pretty bleak opportunity for income investors, with the average stock in the U.S. offering a dividend yield of just +2.1%, only a smidgen higher than inflation. In fact, we now have the lowest-yielding stock market in the world, apart from Japan's.

Stocks offer significantly higher yields in almost every other country on earth. New Zealand companies pay an average of +8.3%, Italian firms +5.3% and companies in the Philippines are yielding +4.6% -- all more than twice the yield offered by U.S. equities.

Why?

International yields are higher partly because of stiff U.S. tax policies that historically discouraged big dividends. Policy-makers have moved away from that, though the shift is recent and like anything political, it might not be permanent.

Foreign nations are also chock full of highly-profitable state-sanctioned monopolies -- these dominant market leaders can afford to pay above-average distributions. Dividends are also higher abroad because companies in emerging markets are often forced to offer fatter distributions to attract foreign investors.

Whatever the reason, you can expect vastly higher yields abroad, giving you yet another reason to expand your investment search beyond U.S. borders.

Foreign markets are shellacking Wall Street

The U.S. market's broadest measure, the S&P 500 Index, rose +3.5% in 2007, a lousy showing well below its average. And that's not the only poor performance in recent memory; the S&P also posted dramatic losses in 2001 and 2002.

The big picture is simply this: The U.S. stock market is one of the world's laggards.

That might seem like a bold generalization, so we ran the results from every equity index in the world for the past ten years. The top broad-market performer was Peru, which notched an annualized 10-year gain of +25.6% (its total return over that time was +859%). By contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq have posted tiny annualized gains of just +3.4% and +3.5%, respectively.

In the meantime, major market indexes in other countries have managed to absolutely knock the cover off the ball. China rose +180% last year. The Ukraine was up +135%. Slovenia posted a +97% gain. India seemed like a laggard -- its markets gained a mere +65%.

It's a jungle out there

And a savannah. A desert. A mountain range . . . and even Palau is as nice an island as you'd ever want to visit. We live on a big world with a lot of opportunities, and you can find the best of them in my High-Yield International newsletter. It's the only product of its kind devoted exclusively to finding high-yielding securities in today's best-performing foreign markets.

In recent issues, I've profiled some of the most attractive dividend-payers on the planet, including an Australian utility with a 20.8% yield, an international shipping company paying 14.5%, an emerging Europe fund with a 21.6% yield, and a diversified real-estate fund with dividends of 23.0%, among many others.

Let me give you another example. I made a wisecrack earlier about Singapore, but the investment potential of this tiny nation is no laughing matter. It's perfectly positioned at the intersection of various shipping routes, and it has the largest and most efficient port in the world. Real estate is booming, and the economy is forecast to grow at a +5.0% clip for the next few years. I found a REIT there that's yielding 9.0%.

If you'd like to learn the names of these stocks -- plus receive a steady stream of foreign stocks, funds, and other investing ideas with abnormally high dividend yields each and every month -- then I'd like to extend you a personal invitation to try my premium investing newsletter . . . High Yield International. Visit this link to learn more.

Thanks for joining me on my search for today's highest-yielding securities!

-- Nick Lanyi
Editor, High-Yield International