"Tether will then "burn" (destroy) those tokens, taking them out of the supply and helping consolidate the price at a lower level."

Tether Co. does not have to explicitly burn USDT to remove them from circulation, all they need to do is refuse to sell USDT and they achieve the same effect.

Regardless... minting more and more USDT in a sideways market shouldn't be necessary... so, why in the hell are they doing it?