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I understand. It's so illogical that I still consider it a fundamental error. This is the first time I've seen something like this in an editing program; it's different in other programs—usually both options are available. Here, it's severely limited.

It defaults to resizing from the center. As thepixelsmith said, it happens because the Anchor Point (origin point) defaults to being in the center of a layer.

There is no button anywhere to disable this

It’s not an on/off button, it’s a property that lets you set the Anchor Point anywhere you like.

If you want to resize a layer from a point other than the center, set the Anchor Point property to that point. Although you could do it by dragging the Pan Behind tool, the fastest precise built-in way to set it to the top left corner is to set the Anchor Point to 0,0 as shown in the demo below. I just Tab among the fields and type the zeros, takes two seconds. In the demo below, notice how the Anchor Point icon over the image moves from the center to the top left corner. The layer Position must also be moved to 0,0, that’s why the demo shows that too.

The demo shows doing it from the Properties panel, but you can also do it using the Effect Controls panel, or with the menu commands Layer > Transform > Anchor Point and Layer > Transform > Position.

it is a program error that is inconsistent with what the user is doing

No, there is no error. It’s completely consistent with other professional video editing applications.

Scaling from the center might not be what you’re used to, and it’s perfectly legitimate to question it and say it shouldn’t work that way. After all, in other Adobe graphics applications such as Photoshop, a layer typically defaults to resizing from a corner, so if you’re not used to resizing from the center, this can seem odd. 

However, you should know that the way this works has been the same for over a third of a century, so generations of After Effects users are used to exactly how it works right now. To them, resizing from the default center position of the Anchor Point is not weird at all, but totally normal and expected.

And it isn’t just After Effects. I also tried resizing a video clip in Adobe Premiere and its competitor DaVinci Resolve, and guess what: They both agree with After Effects, they resize a clip from its center.

So if you come from graphics applications and haven’t used video editing applications very much, you may need to adjust your expectations for the fact that many of the most popular video editing/effects editors default to resizing an object from the center.

The points indicated in your image are the controls for the bounding box of the layer. Adjusting them adjusts the scale property. In After Effects all layers scale from their Anchor Point, thats the crosshair icon located at center of your layer (in this image). 

The Anchor Point can be moved by using the Pan Behind Tool (Press Y on your keyboard to activate it). There are also add-ons like RepositionAnchorPoint (https://aescripts.com/repositionanchorpoint/) that can auto move it similar to the way other Adobe programs can.