Little Green Men and the Economy

So about every other day I feel like a space alien, wandering earth, puzzled and perplexed. Now and then I see there are others writing on the internet, with similar thoughts. However, I don't meet many of these fellow space aliens in person, thus questioning their actual existence....
Nevertheless, the space alien in me doesn't understand a growth economy. All these humans are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to save a system that never made any sense to this space alien to begin with.
You have a system based on a need for economic growth, increasing GDP. Nations have no choice but to grow their economy and encourage the increasing world population to consume more. This is basically what makes the economic world go around. So you have all these Westerners that already have everything they need, but you need to encourage them to have more, go into debt. Nobody seems to recognize the absurdity of an average 1950's home growing from 983 square to 2,349 foot home in 2004. Or an average American woman now owning 19 pairs of shoes, while living in a household that owns 2.28 vehicles.....
The craziness is--if you needed to build homes twice as large, or buy two times more cars, 3 times more shoes--to keep the American GDP and economy strong--what will we be doing to provide economic growth in the distant future?? I cringe when 'they' speak of "new housing development" on the radio news as an indicator of a "healthy economy"--I mean are you going to build large new homes on the moon 50 years from now?? (Skyscrapers don't provide much "growth" as you don't need a car, lawn furniture or a gigantic inflatable Santa)
And what are you going to do about the billions in the Developing world--who would also love air conditioning?? (A huge factor in increased electrical consumption) And want their own cars and large homes too! I mean are we all going to be living on cruise ships? (the oceans have room--investment alert! ;)
Are women going to own 55 pairs of shoes? Throw out their working stainless steel refrigerators monthly, in order to buy another one?
Some may argue--there are plenty of resources to go around. But are there really? Then why are Asian countries buying up farm land in Africa to feed themselves? Where is the fresh water in Texas?
It's not like I want to live in a yurt, burning cow dung for fuel myself. I enjoy creature comforts and don't necessarily want to jinx it. I am just perplexed as to how it will play out in the future, makes no sense to me....I will be departing on my space ship now....