Economist Robert Reich says China's currency move is pretentious nonsense.

“Watch your wallets,” Reich writes in his blog, because China’s only doing the minimum to keep Congress from listing it as a currency manipulator.

"Here's the awkward truth that's not openly discussed on either side of the Pacific,” Reich says. “Both the United States and China are capable of producing far more than their own consumers are capable of buying."

"Both our societies are threatened by the disconnect between production and consumption."

In the United States, Reich says, the root of the problem is a growing share of total income going to the richest Americans.

Inequality is also widening in China, he notes. However, the root of the problem there is that a declining share of fruits of economy growth is going to average Chinese and an increasing share is going to capital investment.

"In China, the threat is civil unrest,” Reich observes. “In the United States, it is a prolonged jobs and earnings recession which, when combined with widening inequality, could create a political backlash."

U.S. markets, which rose on China’s currency announcement, have come back to earth, MarketWatch reports.

Mitul Kotecha, head of global foreign-exchange strategy at Credit Agricole, wrote in a note to clients: “The realization that China will only move very gradually on the CNY [Chinese yuan] brought a dose of reality back to markets after the initial euphoria."