There's cognitive dissonance for ya. You tell her the consequences of NOT doing the way it is today, and she equates that with the consequences FOR doing it that way. Moron.
It's a pretty good illustration of the Labor Theory of Value, though, and why Marx was wrong about it. If the only thing that counts in valuing a commodity is the cost of the materials and the labor to turn it into a product, then where did the process come from and how do you ever fund a new process that might make it cheaper? Joe, Ed, and Ivan all get tasked with coming up with a better process, Joe succeeds, and they all get the same money anyway - it's government money, after all - to Marx, Joe would be motivated to press on out of love for his comrades and the Collective, but in practice that and a kopek will buy you a cup of coffee. And when the next process is needed and nobody comes up with it, who's the first guy to get shot for not working hard enough? Yep, Joe.
That's why you get so little innovation from socialist societies, whether it be pharmaceuticals or art - no reward for risk means no risk taken. Or as Rand would put it, if success only gets you eaten, why succeed?