From Portugal we from the Financial Times:
Portugal has denied as "totally false" reports that it is under pressure ... to request an international financial bail-out.
And also from the Financial Times we are told by Spain:
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spanish prime minister, on Friday ruled out any rescue package for the country ... "I should warn those investors who are short selling Spain that they are going to be wrong and will go against there own interests," Mr. Zapatero said
For a refresher below are some other not so prescient quotes.
First we have Ireland and this quote from the Irish Times:
Asked about the four-year plan, Mr Cowen said: “In coming weeks it will be finalised and then we will deal with it, and then we’ll have the budget”.
Asked to comment on reports, citing eurozone sources, that negotiations were going on behind the scenes for emergency funding for Ireland from the EU, he said: “We have made no application whatever for funding.
And that was November 13th, 2010. About a week before bail-out talks were admitted.
Then we had these quotes on January 29th 2010 from Business Week:
European Union policy makers have no “plan B” to help Greece, the bloc’s top economic official said, and Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said he’s not aware of talks of a possible rescue.and this gem, while still true is unlikely to last.
“There is no bailout problem,” Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “Greece will not default. In the euro area, default does not exist.”
In the not so distant future that comment will leave a mark.
Moving to this side of the pond we have Dick Fuld's "I'm gonna burn the shorts" comment on CNBC before Lehman Brothers blow up.
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