So, this morning I woke up and of course looked at my phone and I saw that Bitcoin was down. But then I realized I've been dollar cost averaging for years. So before going right back to sleep, I bought the dip and then took another nap. So yes guys, the market is down today. And no, not just the crypto market, the entire market. The crypto was down, the stock market down, Hong Kong's stock market was down, everything is red today. But why? So apparently it is related to the Chinese property development giant China Evergrande or Evergrande, I don't know how to pronounce her name, something like that. So how does this affect Bitcoin and how will it affect Bitcoin going forward? That's what we're going to cover in today's video along with Bitcoin market analysis and some trade setups that we will be watching for the rest of this week. Hey, Jay here and welcome to Bitcoin Daily bringing you guys the best tips, tutorials and ideas to help you guys become profitable and successful investors. The goal of this channel is to empower you, the beautiful Bitcoin community with the knowledge and resources to take you guys up to that next level. So if you guys are new here, make sure to subscribe to the channel and turn on the notifications. If you've been here before, don't forget to like this video. Also if you have any questions, of course, drop it in the comments. Let's jump into today's video. So let's start off with an overlook of what the market has looked like today in the last 24 hours. You guys can see that the total market cap is down by almost 8% over the last 24 hours. So yes, it is a red day overall in the market. You see Bitcoin is down around 7.5% over the last 24 hours. Theorem's down around 8%, Cardano down about 9%, Binance down about 11, XRP down about 12. You see that everything is down a little bit more. The further you go away from Bitcoin for the moment. As you guys know, outcoins are always a little bit more volatile than Bitcoin itself. So that's why you will see those down more than Bitcoin when Bitcoin goes down and you will see them up more than Bitcoin when Bitcoin goes up. So what has caused this breakdown today in crypto? So and it all goes to the same thing that's affecting the rest of the markets, which is this news here. So who in the world is the China ever grand group? So do you guys remember the Lehman Brothers from 2008? They're basically China's version of the Lehman Brothers. Now quick history lesson on who the Lehman Brothers are. If you look on Wikipedia, you see that the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers on September 15th, 2008 was the climax of the subprime mortgage crisis. So this is the largest bankruptcy filing in US history involving more than $600 billion in assets. This bankruptcy triggered a 4.5% one day drop in the Dow Jones industrial average. And of course, this prompted a financial panic in crisis. So now that we know who the Lehman Brothers are and what happened when they went bankrupt in 2008, let's go back to the China ever grand group. So this company has over $300 billion in debt, placing the company as the world's most indebted property developer. The company has already warned on multiple occasions that it could default on its debt. So although this is not directly related to Bitcoin itself, if a company of this magnitude defaults, it's going to affect the entirety of the financial system, not just the crypto markets, not just the stock markets, not just China's Hong Kong's stock market is going to affect trickle down to everybody, including the crypto markets. So there have been a lot of rumors about this affecting Tether directly. You know, Tether is always in all sorts of rumors anytime there's any type of fight, of course. And Tether put out a statement saying that it does not hold any commercial paper or other debt or securities issued by ever grand and has never done so. So this only seems to be one of the first cracks happening as other Chinese companies, other Chinese home builders are also drowning in the same issues. So news like this always happens occasionally. There's no way to ever know when it's going to happen or how it's going to directly affect the markets. This is why we always tell you guys to dollar cost average. Dollar cost averaging is the most effective way to invest for long term in Bitcoin. If you're a long term investor, then this shouldn't really matter too much to you or affect you too much as you're not worried about the day to day, week to week, even a month to month. We already spoke about September being a bearish month historically for the markets. So I'm not really too worried about this, even though if they did default and went bankrupt as you guys saw what happened with Lehman Brothers back in 2008, of course it could have a significant impact in the market and everything could drop really. I mean, there's no way to get away from it unless you're not in anything, but it would affect of course all the markets, not only crypto markets, but the stock market as well. But at the end of the day, remember that Bitcoin, this is kind of the whole reason why Bitcoin was created to solve issues like this. So even though this might affect Bitcoin in a negative way, I believe that long term this should shed more light on Bitcoin on why the world needs Bitcoin. It was no accident that Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin in 2008, right when all of this was happening with the Lehman Brothers in the financial crisis. So make sure to keep thinking about that as this story continues to develop. So let's go ahead and take a look here at what's going on in the markets today. As you guys can see here, we're currently at $43,000, we're right around that area. We basically, this candle opened up at $47,268, and from there it's dropped down pretty much $4,000 on the day. Currently down over 8%, we had a low of $42,400. So as we stated before, $42,000 is a very strong support here. As long as we stay above $42,000, we should be fine. You can see here that once we broke out above $42,000 finally, right here was the breakout. Any time we've dropped it back down, you can see that $42,000 has pushed the price right back up. And today's low here, today's actually the lowest we've been sent. We broke out on the 6th of August here above $42,000. And you can see before, after we dropped below $42,000, is when we had a huge drop and when we got close to $42,000 again, we would get rejected. So $42,000 is a very, very strong support and resistant zone. There's a lot of activity there. You can see that it was a previous all-time high. It's been support on multiple occasions and it will continue to play that role here for now. So that's why $42,000 is such an important level for us. I know some people are talking about Bitcoin closing above $44,000, but I believe that $40,000 and $42,000 are much more important levels than $44,000. Yes, of course it's great for us to close above $44,000, but I still believe that closing above $40,000, even if we close below $44,000, as long as we hold here at $42,000 and we close above it, we're fine. We can still see $50,000 and above at some point soon. But if we break below $42,000, I think that we could see something like this where you can see just how big this red candle was here and it dropped us all the way down to the lows of $28,000. So I think if we were to break below $42,000, we could potentially see the levels of $35,000, $30,000, $28,000 again, which is why it's very important to not break below those levels. But like I said, there is a lot here at this level. So as long as we hold here at $42,000, we should be fine, guys. We have a lot of support here at these levels, so we just need to hold here because if we break below, that's when there's basically a huge drop-off where we could see those levels that I just previously mentioned. So for me personally, this is another opportunity to buy the dip here and we could potentially see the prices go back up to that $48,000 area. It might take either this whole week, might not see that till next week. I'm expecting probably a choppy week going forward for the rest of this week just because it's going to be fear and uncertainty and doubt in the markets over the rest of this week. Unless we get some really bullish news, I think that we'll probably just chop around in this area. Again, as long as we stay above $42,000, I have no issues with it and I think we're still looking good overall. So of course, the support here for Bitcoin currently is going to be $42,000. And it's going to be $40,000 and beyond that is when we get into riskier numbers where it could be like $38,000 and then probably $35,000. So that's why we need this level to hold here so that we can remain bullish. This is the bottom of this current trading range that we're in and the top of this trading range is of course $50,000. So that'll be the top of our range as long as we stay above $42,000. In Ethereum, you guys already know that Ethereum is going to follow Bitcoin and it's usually an exaggerated move of whatever Bitcoin is doing. So Bitcoin is down 8% today. So Ethereum is down 9% today. So if Bitcoin moves up, Ethereum is going to move back up with it and the percentages, the gain will be a little bit more than Bitcoin. Just like the drops are always a little bit more of Bitcoin. So at $3,000, remember we spoke about it on Friday's video. I told you guys $3,000 is where I am looking to buy Ethereum. You can see here how many times it's tested $3,000 and how many times it's held up. $3,000 is a strong support here guys. I am definitely buying here and entering some bounce back trades here. I'm still not going to be risking a lot here but I'm definitely using that $3,000 support as an entry here with $3,500 being the top of this current trading range that we're in. So hopefully you guys are enjoying this video. So far next we're going to talk about some trade setups that we're going to be watching for the rest of this week, including one short trade setup in case we go below these levels. We will be opening some short trade setups here. So let's go ahead and jump into it. Before we do make sure to smash that like button on the video guys. Make sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so yet. We're almost at 11,000 subscribers guys. Thank you for you guys who have already subscribed. Also if you have any questions about anything that we're talking about today, drop it in the comments. Let's jump into these trade setups. So in Bitcoin the first thing that we're looking at is $45,000. Now what are we going to do with $45,000? That is going to be a breakout entry level for us. So you guys can see that every time it's bounced above $45,000 been able to go up here when we drop below it. We bounced above $45,000, went all the way up to $48,000 up here. And we're expecting if we get a bounce here we should be able to break above $45,000 and hit that $48,000 range again. So that's currently the main breakout range and breakout level that we're going to play. Now for a bounce entry here $42,000 is going to be the bounce entry we're looking at. But you have to be careful because if we'd fall below $42,000 we could see something like this where it just dropped really, really hard. So that's why I'm if we drop below it and we bounce back up on that's when I'm taking that trade. I'm not taking the trade if we're consistently dropping down. So that leads us to our short position in the event that we break below $42,000. So if we in the event we break below $42,000 we will be opening short positions like the same way we enter breakouts. We're going to enter a break down here below $42,000 with our stops above $42,000. And if we break down, for example, like this where the price just drops below and then it bounces back up, we will be closing out our short entry and we and opening up a long entry to play the break the bounce back entry that we just mentioned before. So if you have any questions on how to execute this trade, drop it in the comments and we will be more than happy to clear up any confusion that you might have with this. The next short entry would be below $40,000. So those are the two short entries that we will have set up here in Bitcoin this week. We gave you guys the long entries, which is above $42,000 on a bounce back and above $45,000. In Ethereum, we're not going to play the short entry just because it is more likely to have many fake outs, you know. So we don't want to be in two different short positions and it's a fake out and get stopped out of two different shorts. So here we're only playing that $3,000 level as a bounce back entry. And then above that, we're going to play $3,200 as a breakout entry here. So we're entering trades above $32,000. You can see that last time it broke back above $32,000 and went all the way up as high as $35,000, $3600 there. So we're kind of eyeing that same move there in this chop. And then of course above $3,500 will be that next trade. You can see that last time we got above $3,500, we went up almost as high as $3,700. So that's what we will be watching for the remainder of this week if we get any rallies back to the upside. That is it for us today, guys. I hope you guys have enjoyed this video. If you have any questions about anything that we covered today, make sure to drop it in the comments. We're always happy to answer and get back to you if of course we have the answers to the questions that you're asking. On days like today, guys, don't get too much into the daily movement of the prices. Just kind of relax. Don't look at prices.  Don't look at the prices. Don't look at your portfolios for the rest of the day, maybe even the rest of the week, right? Just go ahead and enjoy your life, guys. Enjoy your time with your family, your loved ones, your friends, and go about your days. And if you do want to be interacting with your portfolio, what you should be doing is buying the dip and adding more to it. Don't sell during panics, guys. You buy during panics. You sell during euphoria. So thank you guys so much for watching the video. Make sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so yet. And don't forget to like the video, guys. It costs nothing to like our videos and it takes us a bunch of effort, so it is very well appreciated. It helps us out a ton with YouTube and its, of course, algorithm. Thank you guys for tuning in today. I will see you guys on the next one. As always, peace and love.


today on this fabulous Tuesday we're your host Amanda Brocker and Tom Hollis and today we are definitely going to give you hope so that you can stand firm in your faith in this world that literally is falling apart Tom. Well yeah we're going to talk about that a little bit but we're going to talk about it from another angle you know life is unpredictable and the world's increasingly unstable people have never been so confounded and confused everything seems like it's sparring downward where where is God in all this where there's good news the apostle Paul he also experienced a lot of setbacks even persecution he was thrown in prison for preaching the gospel and he wrote a book about it in the book of Philippians and pastor and Bible teacher Robert Morgan is going to be with us he's going to help us unpack the book and what it means for us today and how we can rejoice in times I mean most of us have not been through that kind of trial but Paul talks about rejoicing even in that I can't wait to ask some questions you're going to want to call someone up let them know Cornerstone is having an amazing interview on hope today and he brings a wealth of wisdom to us Tom you were just reflecting on this book I mean it's something that you said could be used in a small group yeah yeah there's so much in it again the book is called whatever happens how to stand firm in your faith when the world is falling apart and it is just a a great study in Philippians there's so much to dig into there it's going to be great also if you if you need prayer remember that we always have prayer partners standing by they're always there ready to pray that's right you know prayer is an essential part of cornerstone television it's been from the beginning and we are thankful for that opportunity it's it's like coming to the altar so in a church service well we're a television station so people are out there watching us maybe on their phones or in the hospital bed or at their in their car I mean they can be anywhere literally watching us and just one call you could literally be like at the altar and having a prayer person pray for you I love that that's right we do well our next guest is a great friend of ours as we mentioned here at Cornerstone Robert J. Morgan is a Bible teacher an author and he's written a new book called whatever happens how to stand firm in your faith when the world is falling apart Robert it's great to have you back with us on hope today thank you I'm always glad to be with you guys it's a wonderful blessing to be a part of the ministry that God has given to you well it's a wonderful blessing to just talk to you and dive deep into some of the parts of scripture and and you know I love to do that and you've done that with this book and you've done it in the book of Philippians so could you tell me just about the significance of that why is this an important book for us again Paul was running into some really difficult times when he wrote this book could you just unpack that for us well I've been studying the book of Philippians for a half century I have taught through it and preached through it many many times and it's one of the favorite books that people have in the Bible and I've met a number of people that have memorized it there's only four chapters there it's got several great themes but it comes out of a very interesting background the apostle Paul had wanted to go to Spain for his fourth mission trip instead he was arrested in Jerusalem and then he was narrowly beaten and then he was narrowly assassinated and then he was taken to Caesarea for two years while he was under arrest and then he was put on a ship that sailed into a hurricane and crashed wrecked and then he washed up on the island of Malta and was bitten by a viper and then finally he made it to Rome and he was under arrest there in his own rented house for two years and people in Philippi thought what has this man gone through we must be we must help him and so they sent him a gift and someone to help him and he wrote back the book of Philippians and he said you know whatever happens stand firm in the gospel of Jesus Christ and it's full of joy it's full of fortitude and it's full of ways to help us in very practical aspects of our lives be joyful and strong even when everything in the world seems to be falling apart well I mean that is a wonderful goal it sounds a little kind of like pie in the sky how do we do this how do we really you know stand firm when everything uh even even some of our institutions and things we depended on maybe in our life or someone's going through a marriage breakup or who knows what there's just something that is is uh that they thought was dependable all of a sudden they're on unsteady ground how does this book help us out how does Philippians help us in that well I think one of the things we do when we find ourselves and a difficult place is to go to the book of Philippians and study it there are so many verses there that help us this is the book that says that the things that have happened to us turn out rather for the furtherance of the gospel this is the book that says let the mind that is in Christ Jesus be in you this is the book that says rejoice in the Lord always I will say it again rejoice this is the book that says I can do all things through him who gives me strength this is the book that says God will provide for all of your needs through the resources of his endless wealth so I've gone through the book of Philippians and pulled out 31 different lessons one for every day of the month and I think pouring ourselves into a book like Philippians when we're going through a difficult time or the times around to seem unstable is a tremendous way to be grounded and strong and joyful because joy is one of the themes of this little book yeah I love that I love the joy is in there even in the most difficult circumstances so what is a strategy how do we develop a strategy a plan for difficult times maybe beforehand but even when we're in them how do we develop a strategy for that joy well that's what the 31 chapters are about it's a 31 chapter strategic plan for doing it for example one of the chapters says develop one of the chapters in my book says develop a life motto and that's based on Philippians 127 Paul gave us his life motto for to live as Christ and to die as gain now there's something interesting that I discovered is our research for this book the word Christ in the Greek is Christos and the word gain in the Greek is Kerdas and Paul wrote this book originally in the Greek so when the original readers read it it was very terse and and alliterative it said to live Christos to die Kerdas and what a great slogan that is if we go on living then we do it for Christ and if we end up dying well that is tremendous profit that is gain for us that is better by far he says so having some life slogans and motos like that that's one of the 31 strategies that help us in times like these and to me it's hard to find a better life slogan than to live as Christ to die as gain that pretty well covers everything doesn't it it sure does I just have to ask go ahead and plan on this do you have a life motto or do you have a I mean obviously that one do you have any others that really have directed your life yes when I was in college they wanted us to put our life bible verse or our life motto uh under our picture of the yearbook and so my life motto that I chose for that picture was the will of God nothing more nothing less and so I've kept that but I've sort of also adopted Philippians 127 you know in the Greek to live Christos to die Kerdas I haven't quite had had the time to make that made into a plaque but I think for us to have a guiding verse or motto in our lives to have it maybe put in calligraphy or or engraved on a plaque and to keep it over our desk or in our bedroom or something it's very helpful because it summarizes for us and a very easy to remember statement what we need to do the truth that we need to do to make every day an overcoming and a victorious day amen that is powerful information you're giving us I encourage all of us including myself to sit down write out our life motto so that way we know why we believe what we believe it it makes it easier to share it as well well Robert I was just thinking about you spoke of in your book creating a mental hymn book and so I'm really interested to find out you know in your mental hymn book you know are there newer old hymns we we want to know what this is like I can't tell you how important this is you know I wrote a series of three books called then sings my soul a number of years ago that are still on the best-selling list on then sings my soul is a series of books about the great hymns of the faith so I love the new music and I love the old hymns the reason that I put this in the book it's in one of the early chapters because in the background of the book of Philippians we have Paul and Silas and Timothy going to the city of Philippi to start a church Paul and Silas are arrested and stripped and whipped and they are chained in the middle of the dungeon where there are no lights and they are hurting and bleeding and no doubt traumatized but at midnight they are singing songs and these songs were hymns of praise to God I went through the book of Psalms to try to determine which ones they might have been singing because they undoubtedly were singing one of the 150 Psalms from the book that David gave us in the middle of the Bible because the Jewish people all knew those and sang them and it reminded me that we don't always have like they didn't have words projected onto the walls of that prison they didn't have hymns books they could open they had to know these songs by heart and even this morning when I woke up before I got out of bed my mind was you know beginning to wake up and some of the great hymns came to my mind holy holy holy Lord got almighty early in the morning our song shall rise to thee and one that I love I don't know if you know it but it says Jesus I am resting resting in the joy of what thou art I am finding at the greatness of thy loving heart so to me this is a form of meditation we meditate on scripture but we also meditate on the old and new songs and what frightens me is that we used to have longevity to our music so when my wife Katrina was nearly dead I mean she was passing away she was almost unconscious but she began quoting she's in heaven now but the last bit of her life she started quoting hymns and uh and they came to her mind very clearly because she had sung them all of her life so we need some songs that we sing when we're 10 years old and 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and a lot of today's music is disposable it comes and goes too fast for us to memorize it so I really encourage as a spiritual discipline the singing of some songs over a lifetime and long enough so that they become installed in our minds because in the middle of the night we need to be able to have a song to sing when we're on an airplane and tired and we lean against the side of the plane we need to have scriptures and hymns that come to our mind uh because I can't tell you how transformative that has been to me so based upon Paul's experience in Philippi I've added that chapter you know I love the story in there where you're talking about that about the elderly man who was uh far into the dementia and uh someone started playing hymns and and he just got up and sang didn't he sing and like lead a congregation that wasn't there it was just him and the piano player but it all came back to him that's right that happened at America's Kezik not too far from where you guys are and uh Bill Welty was the um director who sat down at the piano and the man got out of his wheelchair he went up actually onto the platform as though he were leading music had been a worship leader all of his life he led every verse of every song that Bill played and then he sat back down and he never said another word for the rest of his life but for that half hour he was lucid because the lifelong images of those hymns were written very deeply in his heart and we're all going to need those in our latter days and I need them right now. Amen to that I have to ask you about uh just um you have a pretty good illustration I thought really timely for someone who is uh trying to follow God and they feel like a door is slammed in their face or that the door is closed let's just say the door is closed you had a good illustration of how I mean what do we do do we just turn away or do we try to bulldoze our way through the door but uh could you just share with us your thoughts on that? Yes so many people struggle with closed doors they uh they fall in love with someone who done reciprocate or they apply for a job and they don't get it or they lose their scholarship in college or whatever it is I mean there's a thousand closed doors Paul and Silas and Timothy went across all of Turkey looking for places to preach and it was a thousand miles from the east side of Turkey all the way to Trowaz and it says the Lord wouldn't allow them to go there the spirit of God prevented them they couldn't find a place to preach they had a thousand miles of open doors until they got to the westernmost coast to the city of Trowaz and then God sent a vision that said come over to european help us and that was the open door but it really struck me Tom and Amanda that they had a thousand miles of closed doors before they had the one open door and it reminds me that we have many more closed doors than we have open doors in life because for every one thing that the Lord wants us to do there are many things that he doesn't want us to do and when I go back and look at my life there were times when I really wanted something to happen or an opportunity to materialize and it didn't and I was disappointed I was crushed at the time but looking back I am so thankful because that wasn't what God wanted me to do he had something better later on so I've learned not to try to push doors open I may knock at them I may nudge a little bit but if I have to force it open it probably isn't what God wants me to do he has something better for me later on so I learned from that we shouldn't be discouraged when the doors slammed in our face because it's God's way of through circumstances guiding us to his very best for us this is just so much wisdom Robert we cannot thank you enough your book is chocked full of that in just real life situations and I feel it like this is what my life has looked like a lot of closed doors and then those few open ones and you're like okay God says go then you go but something else you bring up is about generous giving and how it's just important to be that generous giver as it is for the one on the receiving end yeah what I didn't fully understand until I studied for this book is that the church in Philippi is the bible's number one exhibit a when it comes to a generous church that supports missions and paul talks about it in the book in fact the whole book is a thank you letter to them for their continual support but in uh 2nd Corinthians 8 and 9 he devotes two chapters to talking about the generosity of the churches of Macedonia well that was primarily the churches that made up this Philippian congregation and so so this is a a church that more than any other this one church teaches us how to be generous and of course it's to this church that paul gave that wonderful admonition that that um that I refer to later in the book uh do not worry about anything but in every situation by pre-inputation present your request to God uh the whole makeup of this book of Philippians is so rich in so many ways uh that it does tell us that whatever happens here is a strategy for dealing with difficult times robert let's bring it to where people are at right now maybe someone's watching they've experienced those difficulties they've experienced uh struggles so for those struggling and with their faith what would you like them to hear right now what would you say to them in fact just speak to them right now uh the truths that God has shown you out of the book of Philippians yeah I'll say a couple of things and Philippians chapter 4 paul wrote the Lord is near therefore do not worry about anything instead pray about everything we need to learn to practice the presence of God he is with you if you know him as Savior then he is close to you right now he's in that very room he is within you he is around you he is surrounding you and you can lean upon his presence if you don't know him as Savior then this is the time to make a commitment to him but the key to the book is in chapter 1 verse 27 whatever happens conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ we don't know what's going to happen from day to day but whatever happens we can determine that we're going to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ you can do that and when you do that that is victory robert thank you so much and to everyone out there what are you waiting for go get yourself a copy of this book it will bless you highly recommended it is just a deep dive but an accessible dive into the book of Philippians thank you so much robert morgan for being with us today thank you thank you well we're going to take a quick break when we come back we're going to have a scripture we're going to have some prayer just for you discover what God's word has to say about healing and deliverance best-selling author john ecart makes topical bible study easy with his new book scriptures for faith deliverance and healing this handy reference is for those who want to have a greater understanding of healing and deliverance to incorporate God's word into their prayers ecart also includes targeted commentary to highlight key scriptures and life application his spirit filled perspective will enhance your time in God's word and encourages the spiritual disciplines of memorization and meditation request scriptures for faith deliverance and healing as our thank you gift when you support cornerstone television this month request your copy today if you want to strengthen the ministry of ctv in share your best gift by visiting us online at ctvn.org slash donate or call us at<PHONE_NUMBER> thank you for your partnership hope happens here wow what a powerful interview you know just the thought about practicing the presence of God and that you know the encouragement it brought to me i know it brought to you as well because he was just speaking truth real life truth and how to navigate using God's word as your guide and speaking of practicing the presence let's just reread that scripture that he spoke of at the end Philippians 1 27 and 28 it says whatever happens conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ then i will know that you stand firm in the one spirit striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you i know tom i have felt that fear you know come in like a flood sometimes and you need the word of God you need those hymns as he spoke about you know that just to come bubbling up out of your spirit to remind you of who he is in that moment you know i'm always amazed uh and probably naively so about opposition opposition to the gospel opposition to the things of God i mean it's good news right who's going to be opposed to good news but it's not it doesn't work that way because this news also calls people and authorities and principalities to account before him and so when we uh we will we will all who's all who desire to live righteous in God shall suffer persecution it says sooner or later persecution is going to come now i'm not talking about when we've done something wrong and we suffer for that there's a remedy for that as well it's repentance it's the blood of Christ applied and forgiveness and all those things and restitution and restoration all those things but i'm talking about now more of just we're just going about doing the things we think we should do and opposition comes or difficulties come or doors are closed in our face and we think God what is this look we've got to be able to fight through and stand through those things again i'm not saying fight in the natural i'm saying fight on your knees in prayer fight with the the principalities and powers that are coming against you or just say God is this not is this not the door you want me to walk through even though it seems so much like it is i don't know how many times a man i've heard people of God talk about closed doors and even death of a vision and how they've had to had to say oh god you call this vision why in the world isn't this thing happening um and but they've laid it down it's died in their heart they said okay lord i'm not picking that up again but then god resurrects it at a later time after maybe after some work has been done in here maybe some ground has been prepared god does that i loved how he said like the book of philippians and that little bit of history like how paul was on his way somewhere and i mean the katash freeze that were happening you know the shipwreck the viper bite the reality is we've all had those moments maybe you haven't i don't know you can call our prayer line we want to know what you're doing if you've not but for most of us i think we've gone through that where and you're like god what is happening you thought you were headed in one direction but i love what he said it was a furtherance of the gospel there was something you know i think of our own family like with our own child's waywardness and how the depths that that created in us as parents like because we had to dig into the word at a greater way than we ever had before and now to see it literally did cause the gospel to go forward because andrew is sharing in so many different places now your son andrew i mean he is moving forward with the gospel i mean it's it's so fantastic well i know you and gary have been through so much but god is doing something fresh and new coming out the other side and and that's that's i think what the message is here today is that god has the the path for you he has the way for you now what's great about this is it isn't done in a vacuum it is done with relationship with god relationship with jesus fellowship of the holy spirit getting to know the father heart of god all these things are part of this so we're not just like battling through in some kind of stale situation or some kind of secular earthly situation no we have a relationship with god and i have to tell you you never learn about someone as much as when you battle with them and when you're battling alongside jesus alongside the holy spirit he begins the poor things into you that are fresh and new and deeper and you you know what he even gives you a love for the the the ones that are fighting you because he loves them too and he wants to see them come to know him as lord and savior think of the person who wrote the book we were talking about today not robert morgan paul the book of philippians he was an enemy of the cross he was an enemy of those that were preaching the gospel but god saved him and brought him into a new place he wants to do that with you he wants to do that with those that oppose you because god is a miracle working god and he's going to do that for you today it is so important i just encourage you if you've never surrendered your life to christ i mean that's literally where it all begins he is right there ask him to come in and feel you choose this day who you will serve and may you choose to serve jesus what a powerful statement we can make so what what does that mean if you don't know the lord again he has left he has he has done so much for he's taken the penalty of sin we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of god you've sinned i've sinned everybody has we're all in this same boat we cannot save ourselves we need god to reach down and save us and he's doing that right now he's reaching out to you so what's your responsibility it's just to respond to respond and say god i open up the my life to you please forgive me my sins come into my life and be my lord and savior and i will follow you he will give you the strength he will fill you with the holy spirit he will give you a new purpose in life and you will begin to see life the way it was always meant to be seen through the lens of jesus christ have a great day


The title of the presentation is Age Estimation Based on CT Test Analysis or Ausification of this Efficient Joint in Living Population aged 35 to 50 years. The aims and objectives are to find out the reference age group where there is complete Ausification of this Efficient Joint in men and women and to find out whether the Ausification of this Efficient Joint can be used for age estimation in the age group of 35 to 50 years. Identification is necessary in various medical legal scenarios like determining the age of criminal responsibility, statutory rape, victim trial by juvenile or adult court, and identification of victims in the case of decomposed inmates. Age is a vital baseline parameter in both civil and criminal cases. The legal age of consent, retirement age, concessions for senior citizens, and age of marriage are some of the important applications of age determination. Age identification can be done by legal or scientific methods. Legal methods include documents like birth certificate, school mark sheets, voter IDs, etc. However, they are not universal and are falsifiable. Scientific methods include physical, dental, radiological, and forensic examination. Legal methods have an advantage of being non-invasive and can be applied in living as well as dead substance. Efficient has better contrast and by virtue of its 3D reconstruction, it can be used for studying skeletal structure accurately and in high detail. This Efficient Joint starts to fuse in the third decade and is fused completely by the fourth or fifth decade. This is an observational study designed with a sample size of 384 patients. The inclusion criteria are any patient of Indian origin in the age group of 35 to 50 years who are registered in our institute and are undergoing CT scan of the chest for any indication and those who are willing to participate in this study. The exclusion criteria are history of trauma to the sternum, pathological lesion in the sternum, or systemic bone diseases like osteoporosis, tri-planar and three-dimensional elevations of this Efficient Joint were done on the CT console using 3D CT volume entering technique, maximum intensity projection, and multi-planar reconstruction projections with proper medical settings. According to Canaria et al., the fusion of this Efficient Joint can be graded as grade 1 for new fusion, grade 2 for partial fusion, and grade 3 for complete fusion. Figure 1 shows AC and E are endropocytic abuse, B, D, and F are posterior oblique use. A and B shows non-fused Efficient Joint, E and D shows partly fused Joint, whereas E and F shows complete fusion of the Efficient Joint. The study population was divided according to the gender and age ranging from 35 to 50 years as shown in Figure 2. This is a pie chart distribution, subjects by the fusion status of the Efficient Joint. 33% of the subjects had unfused Efficient Joint, whereas 58% shows complete fusion of the Joint. And partial fusion was seen only in 9% of the population. Figure 4 is a chart showing comparison between percentage of completely fused joint in men and women by their age. About 100% of the female participants and 96.6% of the male participants took complete fusion of the Efficient Joint by the age of 50. For the same age, there was no significant effect of gender on the fusion status of the joint. The mean age of complete fusion of the joint was found to be 46.3 plus or minus 3 women and 45.5 plus or minus 4 years for women. Age after which 95% of the participants show complete fusion is 37 years. On the contrary, the age after which the joint remains unfused in only 5% of the population. The p-value for all the correlation is less than 0.001, which is significant. Our results are distinct from the previous radiological studies based on both radiographs and CT scans, which suggests the difference in the ethnicity of the population, which needs to be considered in radical legal scenarios. Technical parameters such as the slight thickness of the CT scan can also affect the image resolution and thus influence the estimation of the age of complete ossification. Further, the intrinsic characteristics of the population sample can also affect the mean age. The application of foreign standards for the estimation of biological attributes in human skeletons results in reduced accuracy. Certain limitations to a study were that the lower age limit was 35 years, at which some participants already showed complete fusion of this effusion of joint. Thus, inclusion of each participant in the study sample would affect the overall mean age. It is also affected by extreme values and in our cases, there is a predominance of values at the extremes of ages. The socio-economic and nutritional changes of the participants was not taken into consideration. Thus, the CT assessment of ossification of the deficient joint is useful in age estimation. The mean age at which the complete fusion of the joint occurs in men and women is 45 to 46 years. The chronological age of the individual can be estimated to be greater than or equal to 37 years when the deficient joint shows complete fusion. Similarly, in the case of unossified deficient joint, the age of the individual can be estimated as lesser than or equal to 45 years. There is no significant difference in the age above which men and women show complete ossification of this deficient joint.


All right, so I'm excited to talk to you today about a project. I've been involved with inductor and bodies lab and in collaboration with other researchers in the lab and I'm very fortunate They're allowing me to present some of their findings as well so that I can tell you about kind of a full story of How we have looked at the modulation of soluble flit one within the eye and beyond so We all kind of know the clinical impact of the angiogenesis and Just as a quick reminder it certainly does impact all aspects of ocular pathology from the cornea to the retina and has Significant implications for patients and their vision Angiogenesis on a molecular level is known to be quite an elaborate process It was really the research of angiogenesis was really pioneered by dr. Judah fulcman who was a surgeon in Boston and I love to highlight that he was a surgeon because many times people think surgeons aren't real Investigators so he really is credited with a lot of the Initial work in the field of angiogenesis and this schematic just kind of details Actually, some of the basic steps necessary for Angiogenesis to occur so clearly it is An elaborate process with lots of molecular Signals and cues, but we do know now that a final common pathway in angiogenesis is regulated by vegev so the Jeff is released in response to primarily an ischemic stimulus and Once released it then binds its receptors on endothelial cells to promote Sprouting of new blood vessels from existing blood vessels, which is the process of angiogenesis pictured here and then this process is Integral to a lot of non pathologic processes as well as pathologic One so for example endometrium growth wound healing, but also solid tumor growth And certainly a number of pathologies in the eye, which I've already highlighted so The cornea then is kind of a unique molecular environment in that it is a vascular and It needs to be certainly to have a clear medium to look through as we know, but We also now know thanks to doctor and body's work as a graduate student that this avascularity is Entirely dependent upon the expression of soluble vegev receptor one and And the way that this works is so the Flip one is also a name for the vegev receptor one so on the DNA level Once transcribed we now know that soluble flip one Is expressed due to an alternative splicing event that occurs at the level of the pre-mRNA of this Vegev receptor one so in in this way you get a soluble form Containing just the ligand binding domain and not the transmembrane portion of the receptor And you get the full-length form which includes both the soluble Or both the ligand binding domain and the transmembrane domain and so that is pictured here and so doctor and body's work was so instrumental because he essentially showed that Expression of soluble flit one is essential for the avascular nature of the cornea and that furthermore if you Take away expression of soluble flit one and he did this in a number of ways at the protein and the molecular level Then you see spontaneous vascularization of the cornea so If we take this information and add it to the schematic I presented earlier soluble flit one then acts to Bind vegev prohibiting interaction with the membrane bound receptor Which is what is necessary for angiogenesis to occur and so in this way we block angiogenesis All right, so based on what I told you Is it possible then that the presence of an expression of soluble flit one could? represent a Way to modulate angiogenesis Such that we could alter pathology for example if we increase soluble flit one so thereby inhibiting angiogenesis would this then allow us to modulate disease states such as corneal vascularization solid tumor development, etc and alternatively By decreasing soluble flit one promoting angiogenesis Could we then modulate disease states such as stroke heart disease encourage wound healing things that? would benefit from more vessel growth and Indeed this is the question and so to to address this Preliminarily some key questions needed to be addressed so number one Can we effectively alter the expression of soluble flit one in vitro or in the Tissue culture dishes as well as in vivo in mouse models and etc and then To kind of get right to the point are there molecular tools allowing direct bench to bedside Translation so can we use tools in this setting or in the mice that then could have potential to be used in humans Thereby getting to the end result more quickly Secondarily does increasing soluble flit one assuming we can do this does that then reduce or regress new blood vessel growth within multiple model systems? because we want to Apply this broadly and so we need to test our our hypothesis in multiple models to show that Ubiquitous application and then finally is the level of inhibition that we might see here is that sufficient to alter disease progression Okay, so we'll focus on this first question So there are tools called morpholinos which are Have been used for a number of years in zebrafish, but are now being used more and more in mammals mice and humans actually and this work was pioneered within the Though research for Duchenne muscular dystrophy because it's known that the dystrophin gene has mutations such that There is improper reading frame and splicing etc So people have used morpholinos which are essentially engineered fragments of DNA which are Complementary to your target of interest And they've used these to modulate gene splicing and then therefore expression in humans And you can see here they've started clinical trials with these tools and have been quite successful so Thinking about that we wanted to apply the morpholino system To our question so this is a schematic here of then the flit one Receptor at the DNA level so we've engineered some morpholino Sequences that are complementary to regions flanking the alternative splice site necessary for The transition of soluble flit one expression versus membrane flit one expression So using the morpholinos we predicted an increase then By altering the splicing event we predicted an increase in soluble flit one expression and In fact we did find this to be true in multiple cellular backgrounds And so these are several these are two different cancer Cells that were grown in vitro and you can see that using the morpholino We do see an increase in soluble flit one expression That's on the RNA level and then on the protein level in human endothelial vein Cells we see an increase when measured both by Eliza and on the in the western blot we see an increase In the protein level of soluble flit one and so we believe that these morpholinos Do in fact modulate the expression of soluble flit one so then the question becomes in using a disease model system What does this mean in terms of vascular? The vascular nature of the disease and the disease pathology All right, so the first model we used was corneal neovascularization. Why did we pick this? It's convenient It's clear and it's very easily accessible It also has been very well studied in terms of neovascularization and just to remind About some data. I mentioned earlier. Dr. and body was able to show in this exact model system that when you Inhibit soluble flit one expression By knocking it down you get spontaneous vascularization of corneas and Conversely when you have spontaneously vascularized corneas for example in a pack six heterozygous mouse That is the way they are at baseline due to this mutation When you add soluble flit, which is low in the in the normal condition you regress those vessels So you're able to restore an avascular cornea So having this basis was important for our future studies with our morpholinos Also, you know, it's a real clinical problem as well Corneal opacity which includes that due to neovascularization represents the second most common cause of blindness worldwide and It is known that VEGF plays a central role in the pathogenesis pathogenesis of corneal neovascularization Therefore It is likely that molecular mechanisms that we understand from these experiments will be broadly applicable So here's the experimental design and how we tested our hypothesis So we used a suture model. This is a suture in an eye a mouse eye So we used a suture model of neovascularization whereby we Put a suture In the mouse eye and waited a week for the vessels to grow in and then we Injected these eyes with either the morpholinos Which would increase soluble flit PBS as a control as the vehicle or a standard morpholino just to control for the presence of the morpholino and then we looked at the the nature of the blood vessels and and Quantified this in each of the conditions and then finally to confirm that the result We were seeing in this condition was in fact attributable to expression or modulation of flit one We knocked down. Oh, this is Actually standard morpholino, but we knocked down soluble flit one To show that we could restore the phenotype Found in the absence of increased flit one. So let's go through the data So in in the first data these bright field images show What happens when we have corneal neovascularization and we introduce side increase soluble flit one levels so These two are standard conditions and you can see at day zero, which is one week after we sutured You can see the vessels growing into the cornea and these are unchanged You know a week after injection with either of our standard conditions and then There are vessels growing into the cornea day zero in our Flit one morpholino condition. However at a week after Injection with our morpholino you see that these vessels have regressed so furthermore when as I mentioned when we Co-inject with not only the morpholino first flip flip one But also an RNA I that is designed to knock down flit one So we're kind of there are two things that are acting on flit one one is to up-regulate one is to down-regulate So you see that you lose this regression of vasculature and so this helps us to ascribe This effect of vascular regression specifically to flit one And so these are the data Represented graphically what I've just shown you so you can see that you have a decrease and a regression of vasculature when you have increased flit one and that this is Reversed when you knock down flit one so in summary for these data the Morpholinos do increase flit one transcript and protein expression The morpholinos in doing so inhibit suture induced corneal neovascularization in our first round of experiments and then in the second round of experiments When we specifically block flit one we see that restoration of vasculature indicating to us that this Flit one is the Mechanism for the regression of the vessels All right, so we're moving on in terms of the broad applicability of these tools We wanted to also look In for example a cancer model system as we know angiogenesis to be very important for solid tumor growth so I chose to look at breast cancer and Why breast cancer well? In general tumor vasculature is a really important therapeutic target Due to fulcman who I highlighted earlier was the first to really show that a tumor cannot grow beyond about 2 millimeters a solid tumor without inducing Neovascularization so it's absolutely essential for solid tumor growth and then breast adenoma Carcinoma is known to demonstrate marked dependence on VEGF and Neovascularization for growth even among solid tumor malignancies and these data are from some of the Sentinel work and done in late 2007 That led the FDA to approve a vast in for treatment In breast cancer and then finally VEGF inhibition specifically has been shown to reduce tumor growth In both the experimental as well as the clinical setting so in both mouse models and in patients so Breast cancer also plays a role in ophthalmology So dr. Shields is a well-known ocular Oncologist and has published some data on on this topic It breasts adenocarcinoma is the leading source of primary malignancy in women with ocular and or orbital tumor metastases as you can see here and Then this is just one example of a caroidal metastasis found here Also seen on ultrasound here With some sub foveal. It's it's not Obviously directly beneath the fovea, but causing some swelling. So these are things that we could see clinically So to test our hypothesis regarding soluble-flit one in this system. I use breast cancer cell line that is widely used in the field to grow xenograft tumors in immunocompromise mice pictured here and Then after two weeks of growing the tumors I started to do intratumoral injections of the morpholino on a bi-weekly basis And this was for two reasons number one we wanted to show regression of tumor growth because that really is the strongest data available in the field and We also did it on a bi-weekly basis after a number of trials of Understanding how long the morpholino is present after injection. So we wanted there to be essentially a steady state Okay, and then our outcome measures Were three-fold we looked at tumor size using digital calipers measured bi-weekly And tracked over a period of a month, which was our treatment time We also looked at Expression of soluble-flit after we harvested these tumors we Harvested the RNA and looked at transcript level of soluble-flit and finally we looked at the degree of vessel growth In the tumors again after completion of the experiment So prior to starting our morpholino injections the tumors this is at a two-week time point They were approximately The same size although you do see a degree of variation and I will point out that the larger tumors are in the treatment group So I didn't place them to skew towards standard Okay, and then these are our data so you can see this graph represents change in volume So from the time we started injection with the morpholino to the endpoint How did the volume of each specific tumor change and these represent our standard tumors? And you can see to some degree or another they all increased in their volume with standard morpholino treatment and then these represent the The morpholino treated tumors and you can see that they all did Regress in terms in terms of their overall size And then this is a graphical Average representation of the trajectory of the entire treatment groups standard versus morpholino treated And so when we looked at specifically soluble-flit one expression again at the RNA level We found that there was increased soluble-flit one Versa in the treatment group versus the standard group so confirming that Our morpholino was acting in our tumors and then finally when we looked at vascular density Between the treatment and the standard groups you can see using isolectin staining, which is specific for endothelium You can see that there's decreased staining in the treatment group as compared with our standard So presumably the increased soluble-flit one was is leading to a Decrease in overall vasculature and this decrease in vasculature makes it Makes the tumor unable to grow and in fact it does regress so as an aside Certainly, this is still at the bench level and there are other studies that we need to do to Show definitively that soluble-flit one is in fact responsible for the findings However, there is a timely need for innovative treatment I guess there probably always is in any field, but the FDA is likely to pull its approval of a vast and based on two studies which were actually Put out by Genentech so their Company studies to follow up the original study showing efficacy and these studies Apparently are unavailable to most people, but I've read other accounts saying that they show essentially no overall survival benefit When a vast and is added to the standard chemotherapeutic regimen and given that there are side effects of a vast and It's likely that this will be pulled Their recommendation will be pulled so getting back to our original questions that we set out to answer Regarding soluble-flit one expression. So can we alter? Expression of soluble-flit one with these more falleno tools. Yes, we can Does increasing soluble-flit one expression cause reduction or regression of vasculature? and yes, we've shown that it does in in two model systems and then is the level of inhibition significant or Sufficient excuse me to alter disease progression and yes That was the case in both the cornea and the tumor and so this is a good place to start We have more work to go from here, but we're very pleased with the current state of this project so I think the broader question is What what do these data add to how we currently treat? patients and So right now we're using a lot of the antibody based VEGF inhibition Which is certainly efficacious, but the time frame for action is limited and requires repeated injection Etc. And so a thought would be that new strategies of Manipulating the subtle molecular male you Over a would provide the potential for more long-term treatment With fewer side effects for the patient and hopefully ultimately better efficacy And so for example now laser treatments Used in the retina for example destroy presumably ischemic retinal tissue to decrease overall VEGF Production, this is just one example, but instead of for example Using the laser treatments if we might be able to keep what cells are alive intact and then Just alter their expression profile of soluble flip one might this be another way to kind of get at this difficult clinical problem So with that I'd like to thank all the people who've worked on this project certainly doctor and body and then doctor Quasi and doctor. I don't know how hero Who've been instrumental in the murine data? And dr. Alana well who is up at the Huntsman and was gracious enough to provide me with the cells that the breast cancer cells and Then Alicia and Elaine who are always very supportive And I'll take any questions Okay, I Think it's unknown in humans certainly how they compare in terms of the murine data It's a I have not seen a head-to-head So I think that would be really that would answer that question directly I think when you look at the data independent of one another understanding different groups have done the studies Etc the data are pretty much analogous in a mouse model. I think the question is How can the The morpholino tools maybe be used in a different way with different delivery than for example that antibody-based tool and Once we understand native regulation of VEGF Thoroughly, which is kind of something Derek's working on as well in the lab in addition to using our morpholino tools Can we manipulate the? Molecular environment in a more long-term way thinking about gene therapy and things like that so I think At least at the mouse level You know in the animal models. It's looking equivalent. So the questions are more Towards human application It's injected. Yes, so I Don't believe We well, we haven't tried it topically. I think that we would only be able to answer that in doing so So these morpholinos are engineered. They're called in vivo. They're engineered with this with eight arginine Sidechains on the five prime end and that has been shown to aid in cellular uptake and so a Lot of that work was pioneered by groups studying muscular dystrophy So we do know from our data that at least with the injection etc. And the way that the morpholinos are designed that this is They have the ability to Access the nucleus, but whether that can be done in a topical manner I would assume that yes that can it can be done But the magnitude of change in the vasculature and the overall effect I'm not sure because we do like it to be Diffused so what we do is we do the the suture and once the vasculature grows It's an injection that actually accesses more of the stroma but then we do kind of a massage to to get the injection to have a Kind of a wider area that is accessible for the morpholinos to access the intracellular compartment So I think that might be a limitation of topical Application, but I think it's something that because of the ease potentially I think it's something we should really look at Yeah, that's a really good point Well the soluble flit it's mostly the epithelium But the keratinocytes also produce it to it to a small degree and so Dr. And body in his original paper kind of looked at all the different cells and those are the two primary producers of soluble flit in terms of keeping the cornea a vascular and then VEGF is thought to be Produced to some extent by the epithelium, but also the surrounding endothelial cells so with loss of S-flit then you get Some VEGF in the epithelium and then once vasculature grows in I mean it's just you get a ton from those endothelial cells And when you're Yes That's a very good question, and I Don't know We haven't looked at that so that's one thing we have to look at we also now that you bring it up We have to look at What S-flit does with the morpholino so pre and post morpholino That's something we really want to assess so I assessed it to some extent in the tumor model system to show that in fact We are increasing soluble flit expression Because to ascribe our data to increase soluble flit you really should show increase soluble flit so So that's one thing we need to do Certainly Sorry, but there another So I did I we used both we used PBS as the vehicle to control for the solvent and we also used a standard morpholino Which is a non-targeting it targets them In Toronto beta-globin. Thank you very much


The Journal of Agrarian Change has published a special issue on the Agrarian Political Economy of left-wing governments in Latin America. Dr. Leandro Vergara Camus, one of the editors of this special issue, will share more details about it. This special issue is a timely contribution to a larger debate in the region concerning the end of the political cycle of these governments. If I may start by asking you about the motivations behind this endeavor and how it relates to this debate. Yes, well, this cycle of left-wing politics sort of starts in the 1990s with several indigenous and peasant movement in Bolivia, Ecuador, in Brazil, mobilizing against neoliberal governments, sometimes bringing them down, changing governments, and then by the mid-2000s you have several left-wing politicians and political parties that come to power. And then we have about ten years of these experience, so we have plenty of time to be able to assess what they've managed to do, what the dynamics has been, what the challenge for social movement has been. So the issue looks at several cases. It looks at Argentina, it looks at Bolivia, it looks at Ecuador, Brazil, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Venezuela. Our discussion is more geared at agrarian issue, at agricultural policies, but it's still very much in debate with this early debate about the role of the state in social change. The issue gathers contributions covering various countries throughout Latin America, yet in the concluding paper you and Cristobal Kay identified eight major trends around the agrarian policies of these governments. If you could now comment on some of this. There are several trends that you can identify as being the major ones, and the first one is that there hasn't been in a grand reform of substantial proportion that would have changed the historic unequal distribution of land in Latin America. In most Latin American countries you have highly unequal distribution of land, and no government really tackled that issue, even though Brazil, Bolivia, and Venezuela distributed a great amount of land. During those years Brazil has distributed about 51, 52 million hectares, Bolivia has distributed about 18 million hectares, and Venezuela about 10 million hectares, which is very, very impressive, very important, but during this same period agro-business also increased its coverage, as managed to continue its expansion, so it has not had the impact. So you have not challenged the agro-business-led model of development. Also there has been some important achievement in terms of increased support for family producers, peasant producers in terms of credits, in terms of infrastructure. A lot of policy has tried to link these producers with the commodity chains that are dominated by agro-business, for example in Soya. One thing that really stands out is policies that have improved the working and living condition of rural labor. So you've had a formalization of the labor market, you've had an increase in minimum wage, we've also seen all types of different types of cash transfer payments that go to the rural poor, and all that has contributed to help improve the living and working condition of the rural poor. As noted in the introduction to the issue, the state often fails to receive enough attention within the field of agrarian studies, so the analysis of its role is clearly another important contribution. What can be said about the role of the state under these governments, and in particular in contrast to the neoliberal period of the 1980s and 90s? The state has always been involved in agriculture directly or indirectly in Latin America, if you think of the main institution that protects private property rights as the state. And the 1990s in Latin America were characterized by a process of privatization of the access to land and the right to land. So the neoliberal governments were really involved in trying to privatize land, and the social movement were actually responding to that. But in terms of direct intervention into markets, the state had sort of retreated from directly intervening in the market and the place was taken up by agro-business. What you have with these new governments is that the state, because it was over the left wing government, came to power at the moment of an export boom, a long export boom. They actually managed to take control of more of the revenue, and they were able to deploy a little bit more supportive policies for agriculture. And they put more money, though, in agro-business than in small-scale production. The state also got involved in very often creating new institutions that did not exist before to directly serve the interests of peasant producers and small-scale producers. But our issue also does not only look at the role of the state, but it also looks at the nature of the state in Latin America. Cristobal and I think that the nature of the state in Latin America is that it's a rentier state. It's a state that is able to extract ground rent from capital, and it does that in oil, in gas, but it also does that in agriculture to a certain degree. And the different dominant classes in Latin America use their control of different spaces of the state for their wealth accumulation strategies. And I think that's what has been the major limitation of the left in general. Latin America has not been able to find strategies to deal with that rentier nature. So the dominant classes continue to use the state to block any kind of reform. While there is some variation, the findings also suggest that the interests of peasant and rural movements have not been significantly advanced. Despite these movements have been a major source of political support for these governments. How can we characterize this contradictory relationship? Yes, that is the section that sort of speaks directly to the debate that has been going on around food sovereignty. A lot of movements that fall into the food sovereignty movement or project were calling, I've been calling for an intervention state that provides support for a small-scale producer and sort of puts limit on agro-business. And the food sovereignty project also gives social movement more of a role in determining the type of market that should be established in a country, the type of food that should be produced, etc. So a lot of analysts that were waiting to see what was going on and what was going to happen with these social movements were trying to see what kind of influence social movement would have on these governments. And they actually didn't have the ability to really push the state into more radical policies. And Cristóbal and I think that it has to do with the contradiction that these movements were placed into when they decided to support these political parties or these politicians. In some cases, for example, in Ecuador, the movements were already in a decline when Correa took power. In other places, Bolivia, for example, the movement were still very much very strong when Evo Morales took power. But in many cases, the movement did not have enough power to pressure these politicians. And because of, again, the nature of the state and the relationship between political parties and social movements, it actually is the state and political party that ended up dominating, if you want, the agenda and subordinating social movement to a certain degree. What you have during these governments is that the policies are targeted towards the landed section of the peasantry. And the increased support to link them to rural business also sort of starts separating out their own interests with the interests of the rural, of other sectors of the rural poor, landless peasants, rural workers. So the peasants that are landed and that benefit from left-wing policies are much less inclined in supporting more radical types of mobilization. So you don't see any more land occupation, for example. In some cases, you see rural unions supporting agribusiness because their interest in terms of job creation is linked to agribusiness. So the policies of left-wing government actually increased peasant differentiation and made it more difficult for class unity. At the same time, the state with its clientelistic policies also went directly, if you want, established direct relationship with the grassroots membership of these movement, cutting the link between leadership of the movement and their grassroots. So it completely transformed the relationship that existed between grassroots membership, political leaders, and political parties. So to a certain degree, what we argue, Cristóbal and I, is that this form of organizing social movement and political party has come to an end with these experiments because what we've seen is that movements are not able to pressure the state when they are part of it. Finally, the relationship between these governments and landed elite has also been problematic, as shown by the impeachment process against Lugo in Paraguay and Rousseff in Brazil. What has been the role of Latin American ruling classes and how Marx's concept of coalesco-guasi can help us to eliminate the discussion? Landed classes in Latin America have always had a privileged access to the state and this has not changed in the recent decades. So what has changed, though, is that because of the rise of agribusiness and the complexification of agriculture, you've had increased linkages between landed classes, industrial bourgeoisie and finance. So in the 1980s, there were two scholars, Maurice Zetlin and Richard Ratif, that looked at the elite in the ruling classes in Chile. They actually saw that there was no separation between landlords and capitalists and they referred back to Marx's concept of the coalesced bourgeoisie, which is a situation in which there's no distinction between the landed classes and the capitalist class. So we think that within the last 30 years, this is what has happened in Latin America in general, you've seen the interest of the landed classes and the industrial classes and finance becoming way more intertwined than in the past. So we cannot speak of a landed class that is separated from the capitalist class. So this creates a situation that makes it even more difficult to transform a society because the dominant classes are much more intertwined than in the past. That is one of the main conclusions of the special issue.