Traders in the Chicago Board of Trade’s two- and five-year options market place orders in Chicago, Illinois, on Tuesday, September 18, 2007. The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate by half a point to 4.75 percent, the first cut in four years, in hopes of preventing the U.S. from sliding into a recession caused by the fallout from the housing market.

It’s September 18th and at 2:00 PM Eastern Time the Federal Reserve will announce that it will cut interest rates for the first time in a long time.

That exact situation has happened before. On September 18, 2007, the Fed cut rates by half a point to address housing turmoil. The air was also full of uncertainty about whether the Fed would cut rates by a quarter point or by half a point — just like it is doing now.

But of course, economic conditions today are very different than they were 17 years ago. The Fed’s September 2007 rate cut came just months before the Great Recession, when mortgage foreclosures were starting to climb and the labor market was also showing worrying signs of weakness.

The situation is not as bad now as it was then. The U.S. housing market is facing an acute affordability crisis, but there is no subprime mortgage problem threatening the country’s financial system. And yes, the labor market has slowed over the past year, but job growth remains healthy and unemployment is still historically low. In July and August 2007, the U.S. economy lost jobs for the first time in four years.

Stock prices soared after the Fed cut interest rates by half a point in September 2007, with the Dow rising 2.5% and the S&P 500 rising nearly 3%.